Welcome to the Spoiler Zone, everyone!
This is for those of you who want to discuss spoilers, from a “I’ve seen the show and WOW now I’m noticing all these other details in retrospect” sort of angle.
Here’s a Spoiler Zone for you to dig as deep as you’d like, into spoiler territory, WITHOUT the need for spoiler tags or other warnings.
My only request is, PLEASE BE EXTRA MINDFUL OF WHERE YOU ARE COMMENTING. Meaning, please don’t get mixed up, and start talking spoilers in the Open Thread, which could seriously mar the watch experience for a new viewer, OR, a viewer who would really prefer to have the rewatch feel as fresh as possible.
Other than that, READER BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
For the main discussion of episodes 1 & 2, which only deals with spoilers up to the point of the group watch, go here.
ENJOY YOUR SPOILER ZONE, MY FRIENDS! ❤️
Could someone advise me whether this would be an inappropriate comment for the Open thread?
Having seen the show a couple years ago, I already know the answer to my query at the end, but this really is what I was thinking when I first watched the cafe scene in Ep. 2.
At the moment, I’m inclined not to post it. Maybe later, when he starts working at the office and is again super dorky and awkward…
I was wondering about that scene too. If he is trying to be undercover he is drawing a lot of attention to himself. Especially with the stuttering.
From what we see later, I think it’s totally real. For example, the scenes where he joins the investigative reporters as an office intern.
This is another way in which Beez’ comparison to Superman is spot on. Clark Kent was an awkward dork when he wasn’t doing his Superman action hero bit.
I have to respectfully disagree. Not real. If Healer were really that awkward, he wouldn’t have been able to do his jobs.
Healer behaves differently when he is with Kim Mun-ho before and after KMH finds out that he is the Healer: awkward before and totally confident and relaxed after.
When Chae Young-shin leads Healer by holding his hand during the first day he comes to the office, at first he walks very awkwardly. When she doesn’t look at him, he straightens up and relaxes. Once she turns around to look at him, Healer immediately starts walking awkwardly again.
During the confession on the roof scene, Chae Young-shin tells Healer that he seemed very different to her, and he immediately begins to stutter and behaving awkwardly again.
After the fight scene in the coffee shop (episode 20) he confidently talks to the father and the uncle, although he was always acting awkwardly before.
At the end of the show, when Healer stops pretending, the office people say he is very different.
There are plenty of other scenes.
Although sometimes Healer behaves a bit awkward for real.
maria, here we meet again. i just posted my thought on that, but now reading your comment, i think you are right, totally.
Excellent. A difference of opinion!
This will be a good topic to revisit throughout the show.
Hi. I wonder how often we will agree or disagree during these discussions 😊
mmmm….
Will there be a betting pool?
that’s up to you, guys.
maria, well, may be it is a “reverse revenge” or may be “remorse” for my mister. but we did gang up on da-mi at the time. so who knows. the future is ours.
Oh, that poor clueless Da-Mi…
On another note, if I were totally honest, I’ll have to wait and see how enthusiastic I’ll be about discussing Healer. It’s a very cool show, and I enjoyed watching it, but it didn’t affect me as much as SLA and, especially, MM did.
Apples and oranges, for sure.
Of course. But I wasn’t talking about the quality of the shows. I meant that a show has to affect me deeply to turn me into a “passionate debater”.
What does SLA stand for?
Secret Love Affair
TY
o no, maria. but i need you here. please do not leave us!
Thank you. Well, we are off to a good start, so I think I’ll stick around.
maria, think I’ll stick around. – i think so too, and hope so too. don’t worry, you’ll be sucked into it. i can not see you sitting on the side, just quietly observing the action. you are the ACTION. (can’t compete with healer, but here you are it.) see ya.
Wow! Healer. It’s quite a compliment. Thank you!
And it’s going to be hard not to get “sucked into it”, when you are here.😊
unfortunately, you might find yourself bored, as so far i agree with your assessment. should i reconsider, just for the sake of fun?
I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure we’ll find something to disagree about. Just wait.
just don’t try to run and jump on the roofs. other than this, the compliment stands.
Yeah. “Do not try this at home.”
I don’t think there is much of a danger of that. Not at my age.
I agree with you, Maria! He seems to be the master of disguise, but indeed, sometimes Healer behaves a bit awkward for real, especially in situations related with family life (since he didn’t experience any). For example, he isn’t quite himself when Young-shin’s dad asks him (as Park BS) to eat breakfast with them.
Exactly. Out of his comfort zone.
but due to the nature of his “occupation” for the last 8 years, he should be able to handle being out of any comfort zone. does it even exist for him? he must have found himself during these years in all kind of “zones”, so i do not think that her father (or uncle or guardian, or whatever you want to call him or whoever it is) will cause him even the slightest confusion, he’s a master of detaching himself from any situation and just doing the job at hand. remember, after all, this situation is also a job for him, even if he starts to get emotionally evolved with her. but i think a job is a job for him, only much later in the show does he switch his attitude, but many “waters will flow by in this river”, until we see that.
although i did not think of it before, as i did not think that it changes anything, those discussions made me think more about it, and now i feel all he does is intentional, it just does not “happen” to him, he’s in control.
Two totally different personas. Healer the night delivery guy doesn’t need to feel anything. He just thinks logically and acts accordingly.,
He doesn’t have much experience interacting with people in a way that includes feelings.
not exactly, he does have feelings to his mother (remember when he comes to visit her as a boy, (and although those are not warm fuzzy feelings of a son to mother), it is still raw emotions. and then in the restaurant, when he runs to protect her. he also has emotions to his teacher – remember when the teacher walks out on him – that is raw emotions. i also believe that he has emotions to ajuma – his partner, but also sort of “motherly” attitude that she displays towards him. at the end, when her place is discovered by the DS group, he displays concern and care for her, also stemming from emotions. so may be he does not recognize it as such, he does have those experiences.
True.
I didn’t mean to suggest he has never felt emotion. Clearly, he has deeply embedded emotional baggage, unresolved from childhood.
I’m just saying his adult experience, interacting with other humans as equals and as emotional beings, is quite thin.
He’s a total hermit and doesn’t need that type of interaction for his night delivery persona.
His relationship with his handler/ahjumma-hacker is pretty much it. And even that is primarily a business relationship, regardless of how much they care about each other. He’s never even met her, face-to-face.
.
@eda – but that’s why @merij started his post by saying Healer has two personas…
@beez — Superman vs. Clark Kent.
Your observation, which I hadn’t read yet when I first posted my comment!
But merij1 is not saying Healer doesn’t have emotions but at this point in the story he is totally suppressing his real self. He has no reason to be his real self. To embrace Seo Jung-Hoo, is to embrace pain and all that anger.
Recall that part of why Jung hoo feels an urgent need to find out what really happened to his father is that he states he often contemplates suicide just like his father. Until Young shin comes into his life, Jung hoo is only existing. That’s why he clings to her so much and that’s why (to bring this back to the subject 😆) he becomes nervous around her Dad and Ahjusshi because he wants their approval as part of being able to be with Young shin.
He doesn’t have much experience interacting with people in a way that includes feelings.
True. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have these feelings. He suppresses them, mostly.He acts on them, when it’s important. I don’t believe people can have two totally different personas, unless there are real mental health issues.
complete agreement. (wow, this is getting out of hand, please do not get bored. although, you do not think it’s a danger, i’m still a bit concerned.)
yes, “he acts on them when outs important” but there’s nothing important to him personally – yet. Not at this point in the story.
Come to think of it, I don’t think Healer has two personas. I see him more of an actor. Actors can play many parts, but they are who they are.
that’s exactly how i see him – a great actor. although actors playing a character, can get really into their character, to a degree becoming that character, like you ah in, who does it with utmost perfection. it looks to me like healer is this kind of actor.
@MariaF @eda – but remember Healer struggled himself knowing who is real self is because he’s always “on”.
Healer was always “on”, because he had no reason to be “off”. He had no one to be “off”with. Healer had no personal life. Only after Youngshin appeared in his life, it became important to Healer to be himself and to know who he really is.
He can handle anything but emotional involvement. I think that breakfast scene was one of the early indications that Healer’s ‘Superman’s facade’ starts to crumble.
not sure, but i am willing to entertain this thought.
although, in a way, we as humans are all in a way “emotional cripples”, some more than others. (we are back to question of LIFE). see below my response to merij, in regards to emotions. in all those cases he displayed emotions that are pretty much in line with normal responses to human emotions. so why can’t he handle it?
so why can’t he handle it?
Because of his fear of an emotional involvement, perhaps?
Healer was abandoned by his mother, his grandmother (she died, but still), his mentor. He suppressed a lot of his childhood memories.
Adjuma is his only remaining human connection, and she is pretty much just a voice in his head.
Thank G-d, Healer didn’t end up being as emotionally damaged as many abandoned children did in real life.
@MariaF – I’m nodding my head. Yup.
it is a given that abandonment creates very deep scars in any human, the difference is how this human reacts to this, can he overcome this and can he use it as a painful but valuable lesson. in case of our character healer, he has exceptionally high IQ, (that is how he’s able to accomplish most complicated assignments and be the BEST in this field). he might lack experience in EQ, but in my opinion he’s a quick learner and knows how to compensate.
yes, i agree he keeps away from people in general in his private life, (most likely due to this issue of abandonment ) he dreams of a life with a wild cat or wolf on a deserted island – he is deliberately choosing a future without other people. although an attachment to an animal is also pure emotion, anybody who had an animal knows it quite well. an animal is a safe emotional choice for him. here we see the result of his emotional scars, although he does not abandon to feel emotions, he will raise and love this animal. but… the emotional world is not just black and white, and the potential to fall in love (with a woman) is there for any man (well, almost any). it really does not take him very long to admit to ajuma that he has fallen for this girl (after all, he IS in touch with his emotions, and his high IQ, helps him to figure this out). and he quickly comes to a conclusion that he wants her in his life ( the wild cat is replaced by this girl), and he does move on following this emotion and this revelation in himself. that’s why i say he’s able to handle it, and does handle it, even ready to give up all that he built till now for himself. i have the highest respect for him for being able to give it all up for love.
beez says: there’s nothing important to him personally – yet. Not at this point in the story. but we are in the spoiler zone, and so we are not speaking of this moment, but the whole story in general.
Again, I don’t know…
Healer was able to handle the transition, because he fell in love with Youngshin. She made it relatively easy.
I know that people are supposedly replaceable and interchangeable, but sometimes a person just uniquely matches what the other person wants and needs. Like JA in MM. Nobody could do what she did for DH. Nobody.
What if Healer fell for someone different? These things happen. Ok, I probably shouldn’t talk hypothetically (we are already talking about a fictional world), but still.
It was pure luck that Healer met Youngshin ( well, luck and Korean drama tropes).
So, for me, it’s debatable whether Healer could handle emotions as easily under different circumstances.
@MariaF – for me, this OTP is not the usual Kdrama tropes where they just decide “oh, they should be each other’s first loves. Let’s throw a childhood meeting in here for good measure.” This time, what happened to their families in their childhood is the catalyst for everything that happens later. That’s why I love the writing here. Their past relationship makes sense and feels organic to the story, to me.
It’s probably nitpicking, but as far as I’m concerned, these are still the usual tropes. It’s the way they are used is unusual: for example, the writer doesn’t just throw a childhood meeting in here for good measure, but makes it an integral and organic part of the story.
Yes. To me, it’s tropey when the “significant shared childhood connection” is tossed in as an added element to create drama.
But in a story like this, that shared connection is broadcast from the very start as the central premise of the story.
Another trope I just enjoyed was the makeover that was for both of them. Jung-hoo had to be chased. And it was very much a part of the plot!
@mon mor – my whistle is not even as good as Young shin but I’m whistling inside my head at how spiffy our OTP looked!
@mon mor: great example.
Beez, maybe you can explain it to me: why is he wearing a suit and a coat, if she is wearing just a sleeveless dress with a décolleté? Very odd.
So she could stand out when she was asking the politician questions!
Agree, but it was later.
When I saw them together, my thought was: either he is sweating, or she is freezing.
i saw exactly such outfits for men and women at formal dinners, parties… and always thought it was so unfair, men feeling comfy, women freezing to death.
@Eda – especially at the awards shows in December… The poor women are freezing to death. Designers – give those ladies a shawl or something.
😆
@Maria F @eda harris @ mon mor
*Doink* I’m so slow! Consider it my degree in fashion that made me interpret that question being about the styles not meshing together rather than the obvious… one is dressed for winter and one is dressed for warm weather. 🤪
Well, I did feel her dress was rather plain myself and the fabric didn’t look very expensive or special but I guess it served to set off Young chin’s figure, which is what Reporter Moon ho was going for. (He said he wanted her to get attention). And it’s not like Healer has on a tuxedo. He’s just well dressed in a suit and overcoat. I suppose the costume department felt the fur stole that they gave PMY to carry made her outfit fitting with his. What I HATED were the shoes they gave her to wear with that dress!
(Keep in mind that many times on Kdramas, the actors supply their own wardrobes so what we may be looking at is what PMY considered ‘dressed up”.)
I was going to all you why you felt her neckline would be considered as décolleté because it’s not all that revealing but then I remembered… it’s S. Korea.
@beez, i am with you on that, i mean the fashion, and fabric and all that.
Kdramas, the actors supply their own wardrobes – do you want to tell me that they do not have a costume designer? is it a matter of limited budget? that sounds to me so crazy. but i also noticed that it looks sometimes that they do their own make up, and so it looks like a “15 year old making her/his own makeup in a bathroom”. is that true also?
@eda – I know for sure that on most dramas the actresses (I don’t know about the actors) usually wear their own personal clothes. If a role calls for something out of the ordinary, then the production supplies the clothes. (Especially in the dailies. One show I watched last year, the actress kept wearing this really cheap shoes. Her character was not unusually poor. It was driving me mad! As the show went on, over the hundredth episode, it’s like she finally got paid and bought some new shoes; Some new outfits too.)
As far the makeup – I can only infer from scenes of shows within shows that the actors all have their own makeup artists that accompany them for filming in dramas. I’m getting this impression from shows like My Love Eundong (ML is an actor), The Producers (a show about what it takes to produce Kdramas), and many other shows when someone is playing an actor, you’ll see their make up artist either travel with them or meet them on set. Oh! I just remembered another one – Record of Youth. The FL’s (Park So dam) character was a make up artist.
I’m curious – Which dramas did you think the actors’ make up didn’t look good?
When I first started watching Kdramas there was this trend to only put lipstick on one lip. I think it was the upper lip only (but I could be misremembering whether it was the top or bottom lip. Either way it used to irritate me so much!
@beez, i guess i am like you, probably when you are somehow into fashion, your brain gets trained to notice every element, every color combination, every shape and form, in one word -every detail. and when i notice something that stands out, even the smallest thing, it really bothers me. sometimes i wish i would not be like this, but can’t help it. so, in both, korean and chinese productions, many times especially when it is ancient times, the men have their wigs put on so sloppy, that you clearly see the lines of how it was glued on (disgusting) and in the back of the neck their natural short hair sticks our from underneath the wig. when the expressions on their faces changes, it creates wrinkles in the skin, like on a piece of fabric, and i wonder, couldn’t they figure out by now how to do it more neatly? the eyebrows are many times painted so obvious (and you can see the natural line of the eyebrow, but the painted goes somewhere else – up or down and you clearly see the shaved part of the eyebrow -they don’t even try to hide it. also, one brow can be way darker than the other.) that i wonder is it done by a professional or the actor/actress did it personally. the lipstick – they do not even know how to put lipstick and it’s universal in many dramas.
and then… i think i mentioned it to you once… they have so many pimples on their faces, i have never seen anything like this in western productions, like hu ge, ji sung (kill me heal me comes to mind, but it’s in other of his dramas also), even healer has pimples although not as bad. i see it on many faces, especially men, women are somehow better. i know you said you were amazed how good their skin is, but i find the opposite. and shiny skins – it’s like they don’t apply make up at all. and my eyes just stuck on these imperfections, especially the pimples. and you see this incredibly beautiful sculpted face of hu ge, and then “craters” on the face from previous pimples and new ones sticking out and he’s not alone. can’t they take care of such things with make up?
anyway, your revelation that koreans in dramas wear their own clothes – that sounds insane to me, (what if some of them do not even know how to put an outfit together or what fits the period they represent in a drama), but now i can understand. for example, in one spring night han ji-min is a librarian, everything is kind of contemporary and modern, but her clothes look like an old spinster years ago. i could not believe it and it bothered me all the time, although i liked the drama. did she herself thought that she needs to stress that she’s a librarian and in her mind librarians have no sense of fashion, design? do they also skip on costume designs? i remember she had a few interesting shoes, like black with red hill and (i think) yellow with black hills, and some boots with metal heels. all the rest of her clothes should have been donated to some country that had a disaster and had a need for clothes. to me such things look gross.
sorry for going into all this, but you asked…
o, and i forgot, in chicago typewriter you ah in has sweaters with huge holes (same things in secret love affair – tee-shirts with multiple holes). what’s this about?
If I’m not mistaken, these are called distressed clothes. Very trendy.
As far as bad choices go, the ML’s clothes in ‘1% of Something’ were really ‘something’. I can’t imagine that the actor himself own this kind of clothes. They looked ridiculous. Maybe his relatives helped?
these looked more like they were created on purpose, not trendy or fashionable, really. i know the distressed jeans you are talking about. these did not look to me like this, and i question the purpose of that. you ah in from chicago, as a FAMOUS writer with a mega-ego, dresses in very expensive, trendy clothes. and suddenly those sweaters, look like eaten by bugs. in secret love affair, his tea shirts have holes, ok, he is a poor student, so the tea shirt can be with some holes, but not like a gazillion.
Distressed clothes are not necessarily jeans. There are dresses, sweaters, tee shirts, etc. It’s a style, so you are right: these holes are created on purpose.
I posted a picture of a distressed tee shirt somewhere here. It’s pretty expensive. But there are cheaper ones.
Here is more:
This one is by balenciaga.
wow! that is really something. i guess my head is outdated! i haven’t seen such, but haven’t put a foot in any store since the pandemic.
Yep. Paupers’ clothes that only princes can afford.
well, yes, the holes here create a design, whether i like it is a different question. but what i am describing has no rhyme or reason, they look like simply holes, not fashionable stuff.
@eda – remember who we’re talking about here. Yoo Ah in will go all out to make his roles authentic. In Secret Love Affair he’s a student who lives in poverty. In Chicago Typewriter (although I don’t recall his clothes having holes) but he would go for the look of a writer who, while holed up (pun semi intended 😆) in his room cranking out drafts of his novel wears the same comfty clothes, never taking them off to wash them until he’s met whatever goal he’s set for himself to meet as far as progress in his story/number of pages. (That’s my theory even though I never noticed the holes.) 😆 Or maybe like MariaF said – “distressed” is a whole type of style that extends beyond just holes in jeans.
@Maria F – I saw 1% of something (both versions) but I can’t remember how male leads were dressed in either version? Was it wild, bummy, trendy or what?
It was plain ugly!
You said it!
😆
See for yourself.
Another one.
One more. I just can’t resist.
🙂
hahahahaha! I didn’t know it was possible for the “like” button to have negative likes! I guess those jackets did it!
Oh. I see. *duh* That’s what happens when you hit the thumbsdown button. KFG’s site is so full of good people that I’ve never felt the need to dislike a comment so I don’t think I ever realized that there was a thumbsdown button. *kloink* 🤪😂😂😂
That makes two of us Beez.
I think this is the “best” one.
ouuu, gross! i haven’t seen this drama, but just seeing that – you cracked me up. i am almost ” rolling on the floor”. seriously!?
girls, we are too much, taking apart these poor men’s outfits, like high school girls. ha, ha. i am with you, fun.
Someone was definitely having fun, dressing the guy like that. Quite possibly, drugs induced fun.
But this show is my very, very guilty PLEASURE.
I know that it’s not perfect (plot holes and all that), but I don’t care. The OTP there is unbelievable! And the actors are great: they make the show look better than it is.
KFG said in her review that she “inhaled” that show. I know exactly what she meant.
ok, that will be my next drama, sounds promising. and i’ll be prepared (thanks to you girls) to run to the bathroom to throw up, when those outfits will threaten my allergy to “ugly”.
@eda 😄 I may not remember anything about Something About 1% but I remember how I feel about it. I liked it in spite of my luke warm feelings about the actor who plays ML.
Interesting… I feel differently. I thought his acting (no going over the top, etc. ) elevated the show.
@MariaF – my comments are not directed toward how he portrayed the role on 1% of something but rather how I feel about the actor, in general.
Got it. I haven’t seen him anywhere else, except for CLOY, maybe.
He’s always the same. Maybe that’s not his fault. Maybe he just typecast. But *yawn*. Here’s a really good & cute little drama he was in based around office life. https://asianwiki.com/Radiant_Office I watched it for Go Ah sung.
Thank you. I might see it. I don’t want to ruin this actor for me. He was perfect for the role in 1%.
@MariaF – Well since he’s essentially the same character… 😆
Exactly. Right now I can think that he’s one of a kind.
Got cha 👍
maria, i am on the jackets! one is especially earth shattering: the whole ensemble: big blue checkers jacket to die for, striped dark blue vest and a shirt royal blue with white polka dots. i think the tie was with a blue paisley design. It’s quite a site – “coordination to extreme”. i can’t get over the thought that it actually might be the actor’s clothes.
@eda
I’m glad you are enjoying this fashion show.
How are the pants?
my eyes concentrate mainly on the top, after i digest the top parts, i faint. but the pants go with the rest, the whole thing is beyond impressive – in a good way, since it makes me laugh like there is no tomorrow. never ever seen something quite like it.
@eda – you’re making me want to rewatch it because I don’t remember anything except the FL helping Grandpa at the beginning. It sounds fun.
@beez and maria, what i can tell you is that the “dress up” in this drama is a theme on it’s own and stands on it’s own 2 feet – that’s how crushingly surreal the “jackets” are.! (i can’t have enough of them). but the girl’s outfits are not far off also(where do these koreans get their fashion inspirations?) – you need to see it to believe it.
now about the drama itself. i do not know if you beez, will like it, and it kind of does not seem to be somewhat of interest to maria. (i might be wrong). of course, unless the jackets are your major attraction and you are in a need of multiple laughs or a thorough cleansing of your insides by way of throwing up (i had this impulse several times).
as for the drama itself – it’s one of those that from the first few episodes you can already predict the outcome and even the development. that’s a problem (for me) number one.
problem number two (again for me) – it feels like a cheap artificial sweetener (i try to avoid those). it’s a very simple love story, simple like kind of childish, the way the FL behaves and the way their love story progresses.
there is nothing artsy, or touching, or amazing in terms of production, nothing to write home about. and on top, the acting did not impress me at all, i do not like a single actor in it and in general. so it is tough, but i am still watching, waiting for the next set of “jackets” – that’s the main entertainment.
sorry to be that noninspirational.
but if you want a break from heavier stuff, that i happen to like, it can be a good antidote to something like signal or a frozen flower. it will not keep you up at night and will not grab you by the … you know what.
it’s certainly “light and fluffy”. but i would also give it a reward for unmatched fashion creativity (uniqueness).
@eda – I already know I liked it. I just can’t find the time to watch it. I can barely keep up with rewatching Healer and I’ve only re-watched 1 episode of Signal so far.
@eda-
It’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?
But I agree with almost everything you’ve said about this rom-com.
It was a very low-budget production, so there is nothing special about that.
It was probably the third or the fourth Asian show I’ve ever watched. I was so new to the drama world at the time, that I didn’t even realize that that “poor nice girl – nasty rich transformed boy” scenario and other plot developments here were actually tropes (and staples in many other Korean shows).
At the time it looked original to me. Original, and naive, and quite funny. I was amused. Also, it was a nice break from submissive heroines and all that crying/kneeling in SITR or submissive heroines and fish kisses in Heirs. Those two shows also amused me, to be sure, but not in a good way.
However, I disagree with your assessment of ML’s acting (and FL’s too, but to a lesser degree). Other actors are either unremarkable or plain terrible, of course. When I watched the ‘1% of something’ for the first time, I remember thinking “Hmm. ML is pretty good. Too bad his abilities are wasted here”.
I got the same impression when I rewatched the show.
I rewatch foreign language shows, when I think I like the acting. The second watching allows me to pay more attention to actual acting (facial expressions, etc…) and less attention to subtitles.
“1% of something” has a sentimental value for me and remains my guilty pleasure (very guilty). I like it for being very light, simple, fluffy and romantic. And for the amazing OTP chemistry.
But I don’t recommend “1% of something“ to other people as a great show. I mentioned it here because of our discussion on fashion choices, and I said it was my pleasure.
maria, sorry, i do agree, it’s a bit harsh. but i never mastered the art of a diplomat, so i have to live with it – in the future please forgive my blunt “truths”, at least you can be sure that what you hear is what i think and what i feel, i am not able to smooth sharp edges.
i can only add that in addition to all that i said, there was also the element of not liking the way the ML looked (i got used to the mostly handsome faces of the korean actors, and this one was the first one that kind of looked like a teddy bear, with a nose like a potato, and a face looked a bit “puffy”, i don’t know, may be puffy is not the right word, anyway, not sharp, chiseled almost sculptured looks as other korean men faces appear to me. the FL looked much older than she was supposed to be, (especially in some of the shots) with bulging eyes and a face like a persian cat. so, that might have been another problem, and of course the way they dressed did not help.
and i did not find the OTP overly chemistrical.
i still think the jackets were phenomenal – worth “every square on each of them”!!!
@eda @MariaF – you know, I’ve always felt a little sorry for that actor. (We are talking about ML in 1% of Anything, right?) Anyway, I bet he grew up with his entire family and every one he knows thinking he’s really handsome so he goes off to Hallyu but then how does he compete with all the plastic surgery that created the Lee Min hos and Ji Chang wooks? (And believe me, despite how upset that makes people when I say it, all you have to do is go back to their very first dramas to see. It’s plainly evident.)
But anyway, I think he would’ve been a much bigger star if plastic surgery were not the norm. And there’s not much he can do with his features surgery-wise because there’s nothing wrong with him.
@beez @eda
I agree that he would’ve been a bigger star.
One time I was watching the 1%, and at some point I had to step away from the TV. I left it on, so I continued listening (without understanding anything, of course). I was really surprised and impressed how naturally his voice sounded.
I decided to repeat that accidental experiment and listened to JCW in Healer. I could tell right away that he was acting. His looks distracted me from his talking.
I still think JCW did very well in Healer, but that experiment made me wonder.
@MariaF – I really, really like JCW’s acting in Healer. I think he brings just the right tone for every one of his “characters” within his character. From the goofy college student (with the bad wig), to bumbling Bong soo, to competent Healer, and even the Fake Jung hoo on top of real Jung hoo when he goes to the police station pretending to be a punk who just arrived from America. (He’s even dancing a bit and JCW is known as a terrible dancer yet he manages to make his bouncing to the rhythm look natural). Pitch perfect, imo. Oh! I almost forgot – his anguish as he wrestles with thinking his father committed suicide and what that means for himself.
Those performances, and I shouldn’t slight PMY either here, but they make Healer what is – a bit of everything. One thing I’ve learned to love about Kdramas that I used to absolutely hate is that they don’t stick to one genre. I still don’t like it when something starts out as a rom-com but then suddenly everyone has terminal cancer. But on a whole, even with serious subject matter, they find a way to add something humorous. And isn’t real life like that? Even in the worst of times something can make us laugh. At least that’s how it is in my culture. I think the similarities amongst the foreign differences is what keeps me interested.
Back to JCW, as eda mentioned before, he’s gives a really amazing performance in Empress Ki as he starts out as a spoiled rotten cowardly prince who’s pretty funny, but he evolves into an Emperor full of flaws and insecurities who slowly descends into madness.
I guess knowing his capabilities makes me not doubt what he chooses to do in Healer. I find his choices golden.
@beez –
Oh, I absolutely love JCW in Healer!
There is no question about it. I think he was perfect for that role.
And I listened just for a few minutes, during one episode.
But I was surprised.
this is the most interesting experiment. on the other hand, i do not know how much we can judge anybody’s voice without knowing the language.
the acting in healer is top, from absolutely every one, i already talked about it.
but i have a question, may be beez would know. i do not remember where i heard it, that the voices that we hear are actually not their originals, but other actors’. is that true, and why and is it a common occurrence?
@eda – I heard that from phl1rxd, but only about Chinese dramas. I think she said, but I’m not positive if I’ve got it right, that it’s because the actors speak one language but it needs to be dubbed in Cantonese. Or was it Mandarin? Phl1rxd would have to answer that.
As for Korean dramas, that’s their own natural voices.
@eda
You can.
I bet the dog from that story didn’t understand what actors were talking about. But it could tell whether actors were just pretending being angry, surprised, sad, etc., or they were experiencing those emotions for real.
dog??? what dog??? i re-read the last several posts but didn’t see anyone talking about a dog??? Did i get lost again?
This is from my earlier post:
I read a story once about a director, who worked in a provincial theater.
During rehearsals his little dog sat under his chair. Every time, as soon as rehearsals ended, the dog would immediately show up, ready to leave. That dog somehow knew, that the rehearsal was over.
One time an actor from a big city came to that town to play in that theater. The rehearsal started, and at some point that actor started talking. The dog immediately showed up.
Apparently, that actor spoke so naturally, that the dog decided, that the rehearsal was over.
There are too many posts here. I’m being serious. We need to move to a new thread, because this one is not manageable. I too missed quite a few posts. Or came across them days later.
@MariaF – Ohhhhhh yeah. I did read that post but forgot about it. (Sorry-term memory issues.)
By the way, thanks for cutting & pasting it here, but did you know you could copy a link to your text like these (I just picked a couple of random comments:
https://thefangirlverdict.wpcomstaging.com/2022/02/16/spoiler-zone-healer-episodes-1-2/#comment-111745
https://thefangirlverdict.wpcomstaging.com/2022/02/16/spoiler-zone-healer-episodes-1-2/#comment-111740
While the thread is getting long, there’s really nowhere else to post/discuss and I don’t think Kfangirl minds since more traffic (posts) equates more traffic to her advertisers’ eyes. And this is not the longest thread ever on this site. I think we’re good.
@beez – I’m not suggesting to stop the conversation. But we already have 2 active spoiler threads. KFG will create the new open and spoiler threads soon. As I said before, I’m already having trouble remembering what I said and where I said it. I’d personally prefer to continue our conversations in the new threads.
kind of right. but so tempting.
@MariaF – I guess I don’t get what you mean because once those threads are open, the conversations will just move over there anyway.
@beez-
This conversation has not.
This is a spoiler thread for ep. 1 and 2, right? We already have a spoiler thread for ep. 3 and 4. On Wednesday there’s going to be a new thread to discuss ep. 5 and 6.
@MariaF – MariaF – ohhh. I see. You’re right. However, until KFG tells me I must move on, I see no reason to discontinue my conversation. Was I not taking your hint? 😁 If you’d like, I’ll leave you out of this one until – if we find something to discuss together in the other threads. (It just so happens, I think eda and I were winding down anyway, but if she or I think of something we want to say about A Frozen Flower (or whatever we were yakking about 😆, I’ll come right back here (that’s if I remember where we were. Thanks to your comment, I think I will.) 😆
When I see others engage in off topic discussions, if I’m not interested I just glanceand move on to the next comment/thread. \_(ツ)_/¯
You know, if you got tired of the conversation and didn’t respond, no one’s feelings would be hurt. I would’ve assumed (as we all do here), that you didn’t see it amongst so many comments throughout this entire web site and just kept things moving.
@beez-
I wasn’t suggesting to discontinue the conversation. I don’t believe I have the right to do so anyway.
I was saying that, because there are so many active Healer threads, I get confused, which thread I’m in, and where we discuss what.
I’m still relatively new to this. So far the discussions continued in new threads, once these new threads were created by KFG (even if those discussions were on the same subject).
However, our discussion didn’t move from ep’s 1&2 thread to ep’s 3&4’ thread.
This time we’ve continued “talking” in both ep 1&2 and ep 3&4 spoiler threads. So, it’s become a bit hard for me to follow.
But again, nobody has to do anything. Like you suggested, if I get totally confused, I’ll just stop responding to the older threads. That’s all.
👍 ✌
maria, i am not so sure. one can not make a conclusion based on just one or two experiments, especially trying to analyze animal behavior. may be you need to extend your experiment and see if it still holds water. also, i do not believe that you can base it on a dog’s reaction (although i love the story), a dog’s hearing is much more acute than ours, a dog reacts to the tone of the voice. so regardless whether this is acting or real, he’ll react to the vibrations that we are not privy to. in addition, from my personal experience with animals that i had my entire life, from wild to domesticated, i can tell you that they are extremely tuned into our minds (it never ceases to amaze me, till today), therefore who know what he read in the human minds, but surely it was not based on “is this acting or real”. so this is my two cents.
also, i wanted to say, every actor is ACTING, no exception, some better than others and depending on the degree of perfection of acting we judge it or perceive it as real.
Of course they are acting. It would be weird (or even dangerous), if they didn’t.
Regarding that accidental experiment, I listened during the first 3 or 4 minutes of the ep. 7 (I think). And I shared how it made me feel. It’s not a big deal, really.
I don’t know enough about animals to determine how accurate that story was.
@beez, plastic surgeries??? (to what extent?) never thought of it. but this MS from 1% of something also has this option – i can see a lot that can be changed and improved. of course, i personally am completely against any invasive procedure on my body – that includes needles and even more so knives. but the world today looks at it from a very different perspective, and i understand that for some people improving their looks is of utmost importance (don’t get me wrong, it is important to me too, but without interventions). my problem with this actor is that he really did not impress me in any way as an actor. you ah in, in some of the movies/dramas does not have the best of the looks (intentional on his part) and he is not afraid to look like it. but his inner beauty and the genius as an actor simply shines and fills all around him – you literally feel it through the screen of the tv. it is absolutely amazing.
@eda
You can’t compare every actor to you ah in. That bar is too high.
By the way, there are people who hated his acting in SLA. I, on the other hand, thought he was mesmerizing. Difference of opinions.
@eda-
Don’t worry: I’m not afraid of harsh.
I don’t mind that the OTP doesn’t look picture perfect.
To be honest, actors’ boyish/doll-like faces sometimes make it difficult for me to take their characters seriously.
I do like the fact that, while ML previously dated movie stars and such, he finds FL very pretty.
I don’t know which episode you are watching (if you are still watching the show), but in episode 11 FL is trying on different outfits to wear to the company dinner. They are pretty sexy.
By the way, what I find especially strange about ML clothes is the fact that other characters in the show look totally normal, business-like. I believe ML was the only one who wore polka-dot shirts.
maria, I do like the fact that, while ML previously dated movie stars and such, he finds FL very pretty.
this one is just one redeeming quality here.
i finished this drama today in the very early hours of the morning – it is one cheeeeeeeeeeeesy morsel of a drama. ok, there is one detail that i sort of appreciate: they told us about the rest of their happy lives, including kids in the near future. usually many of these dramas leave the rest to your own imagination, and you can do with it whatever direction you want to take it.
her outfits in the store: you say They are pretty sexy. i am not attracted to synthetic, shiny materials, and the designs were mostly tacky and had a cheap look. sorry.
@eda
I have to say: I’m impressed that you watched the whole show, although you hated it. I would’ve dropped it, jackets or not. By the way, I literally had to pause the show once, to check what kind of pattern one of ML’s shirts had: flowers or bugs.
On the subject of sexy outfits:
I didn’t say they were classy. They probably suited a streetwalker, especially the first one, but they were sexy and she looked good in them (legs and all).
About OTP and the show in general.
I thought that ML was very good. I totally believed that he was in love with FL. I liked that there were no artificial “longing” gazes or “passionate” facial expressions. I thought his eyes were melting from love. I remember reading one blogger’s review, where she said that she thought the actors were dating in real life. I had the same thought.
I also liked OTP personalities. Well, his – not in the beginning, obviously. And the way they communicated with each other.
Of course, there were a lot of things that I didn’t like about this show.
But, my liking of this show is mostly not rational. So logical, rational analysis doesn’t matter. Because I don’t care.
@eda
please continue your reporting: I almost fainted myself, laughing. And I already saw those clothes!
If we were picking on everyday people, then I’d say, yes, it’s high school-ish, but I really do expect more from characters on tv. Although maybe that’s unfair since the actors are dong it on their own. 🤔 Yet, often they have their own personal stylist so… that makes me feel it’s okay to go all in on them and expect better taste!
My question is: WHERE did he find those clothes???
😆
@beez, it was my (may be less than successful) joke – the high-school-ish. but it was nice to just imagine us (not that young) girls kind of in high school – it was so long agooooooooooooo.
and yes, it’s totally ok it’s okay to go all in on them and expect better taste!
My eyes!
LOL.
While this is not from a drama, this is from a photo shoot of So Ji sub. To this day, I cannot get over – Who would do this to such a sexy, serious guy??? Who??
I have an entire folder dedicated to crazy fashion. Most from Korean dramas but here’s one from a Chinese drama
MY EYES! I think I was gentler to yours!
Ok, but if we are being serious… Don’t want to sound cynical, but he must have been paid by the brand.
@MariaF – he must’ve been. But I still can’t believe it. That they’d want to dress him (or anybody) that way and even moreso that he’d agree to it! Although, I will say that he’s one Korean actor who has never overly cared what the public thinks.
Forget about public. What was he thinking?
maria, What was he thinking?
may be about his bank account?
You bet!
His compensation must have included an additional payment for emotional distress (humiliation).
@beez, please keep such for the days i am incredibly sad – it will sure help, at least it will create tears of laughter.
@Beez – my poor, poor Ji Sub – no wonder he looks so unhappy.
A sin against all that sexy!
@Beez – yes, and Ji Sub is that ‘serious kind of sexy’. That is a very apt description Beez.
Girrrrrrl! If only I could show you these pics I stumbled across on the internet… They look like the kinds of pics actors get involved in before they get famous but these are not younger pics. Well, I mean, they are now but they’re not pics from before his fame. But they may not have been taken in S. Korea. *whew* *fanning just thinking about them*
DAGNABBIT! I went to look at the pics and either they were lost the time my old phone got dropped on water and I had to get a new one (I lost so much stuff) or I stored them somewhere so I didn’t get caught with them. lololol Does that give you an idea of just how racy…
You know, now that I think about it rationally, with what I know now about Korean celebrities and fame, maybe somebody photoshopped those pics??? 🤔 But I’ve seen photoshopped pictures where the neck isn’t quite at the right angle and, for sure, that was SJS’s body and it was somewhat of an *ahem* action scene. On well, I’ve checked and checked my cloud folders and I can’t find them so best I put it out of my mind. 😆
@Beez – You must be talking about his Sieg Fahrenheit commercials. A real photo shoot so not Photoshopped except for probably little things. I remember seeing them a few years back. He works out like my son does, every single day for hours. He is dedicated.
@phl1rxd – er, no *blushing*. These pics were not fit for even American tv commercials! I thought I was being wink-wink nudge-nudge enough in my previous comments but I guess I need to be a bit more graphic:
You know the pics of Gong Yoo that KFG has of him with the tattoos and the sweat pants very low around his hips and the smoke curling upwards around his torso? That is nothing – NOTHING compared to these pics of SJS! And SJS is but alone in these pictures. He has female “company” if you get my drift. *naughty-naughty, wink-wink-winkety-wink* 😉 😉 😉
Ps. I will be Googling “So Ji Sub Sieg Fahrenheit commercials”
@phl1rxd – So I watched some of SJS’s Sieg Fahrenheit commercials – very nice.
And I can’t believe I found the pictures that I’ve been sputtering about. In the past, I stumbled upon the pictures alone with no context and always wondered why he shot them. Well, apparently they were for a magazine lay out.Welllll, I suppose you’re old enough… https://www.dramabeans.com/2007/10/of-all-the-sources-of-inspiration-they-picked-that-one/
@Beez – those are the very photos I was talking about. I do not know how I confused them with Sieg Fahrenheit (or did I? – I am so confused!). I saw them in an article entitled “So Ji-Sub needs money” in Popseoul. Anyway – they are the ones. I wonder if he regrets these? We all do things we regret and wish we could change. As this was circa 2007, it does not look like it affected his career.
Yeah, those last two shots are not the best PR look for the current (centuries-delayed) era of #MeToo!
@merij @ phl1rxd – even back when I first saw them, I thought I had stumbled onto the dark web or something because I did not think they were meant for polite company. I’m glad I had to go on a search for them or I would’ve never known they were in a regular fashion magazine.
@phl1rxd – yes. After I found these today, I came across the originals which have even more kinky poses and that naked chest with the blazer picture goes down a smidgen further (but it’s a drastic, all important, smidgen). 😆 And yes they were posted by Ji Sub needs money.
As you say, the pictures did not hurt his career. But then if you think about it – Korean movies… Look at how Song Ji hyo (I think that’s her name) who represents all things wholesome as a host on Running Man and yet she’s done at least one very –
what’s the word for “adult” but you don’t mean “adult” as in Xrated but almost Xrated?
– anyway – off topic – hers was an amazing movie. A Frozen Flower. Have you seen it? (Song Ji hyo, Joo Jin Mo and Jo in Sung)
The next time the subject comes up about Korean celebrities and their scandals and who is allowed to date and who isn’t, I’ll have to bring up those “semi-adult” movies and ask “why can’t Oppa date but I can see him doing the hoopity-bouncity in all his butt-naked glory in movies”? (I’m looking at you Song Seung heon, and others.)
@beez, amazing movie. A Frozen Flower.
just finished it. thank you thank you thank you. it literally blew me away. when i checked it out, (since you said it’s “amazing”) i did not know the director or the actors. but it was sounding interesting, especially based on semi-true events. so i dropped everything else and watched it.
now, that’s A MOVIE!!!! the colors, the lighting (o my god, the lighting), the cinematography, the costumes (i never seen such beautiful, interesting costumes in ancient korean dramas -they are usually so boring). the out of this world acting. yes, it is not for every eye – if anybody has a problem with homosexuality, no need to even start. the same goes for insanely realistic scenes of true intimacy, true love and love making – o, but such exquisite beauty- each shot – a separate painting, no less than a peace of body-art. it’s difficult to watch, violence, but i became hypnotized, and nothing could make me move away from the screen.
i truly am not even able to go watch something else at this point, this frozen flower is still lingering in me, mixed with awe and true emotional pain. this is probably going to be one of the highlights of this season, if not THE highlight.
so glad you mentioned it!!!!!!!!!!! beez, thank you for being my korean shifu.
i would put it up there with the throne.
@eda – I’m so glad you liked it! But aside from the production qualities, what did you think of the story?
I’m always asking people after they watch it who do you think is the Frozen Flower?
@beez,
A Frozen Flower takes its title from a song of that era which described the sexual relationships between Hong-rim and the Queen.
i liked the story a lot. it was pretty straight forward, the plot was not “twisted like a pretzel” as many dramas are (which i like, but this was like a breath of fresh air), everything in this production was drenched in extreme earth shattering realism, that greatly appealed to me. i got totally attached and invested in their pain, passion, love… whether it was man to man or man to woman and of course the very real jealousy and the consequences. the physical aspect of it was surprising to see, but with such crushing and shattering power.
does this answer your question?
i also fell in love with the 2 ML’s and the FL, simply incredible acting. i would love to see them in other productions, but am afraid to loose the “aftermath taste” that is now feeling my senses.
@eda – Yes, yes. That’s what I was looking for. The theme of jealousy and how it can destroy everything.
I didn’t know about the song. I, myself, think the Frozen Flower is the Queen. Everyone I ask usually has a different answer. While the two male leads stand out, the Queen is the one “frozen”. The King’s “situation” has made her a forever virgin, forever childless (which defined a woman, especially a queen back then) – she’s frozen for ten years in her marriage until things get set in motion.
yes, i see your point, and yes, it can be viewed like this. but i looked it up, and that’s what it said, that there was a song of that era that depicted specifically their relationship. and may be the songwriter at that time had in mind the “frozen queen’s situation”, i do not think that the queen herself was a frozen personality, it’s the “hand” life presented to her. but she completely switched once true feelings hit her, and there was no return. human emotions, portrayed in SUCH DEAPTH are totally mesmerizing, entrancing, electrifying…
i am probably going to watch it again very soon.
@eda – You misunderstood me. I never said the Queen’s personality was frozen (although, now that you mention it, her personality was cold but for good reason). I said her life was frozen. As in her life circumstances.
Yes, I’ve watched it a couple of times. I’ve even purchased the movie from Amazon. I originally watched it because one of my early biases is in it – Joo Jin mo, the King. I must admit, because of my intense crush on him (isn’t he beautiful as the King?) his early lovemaking scene was hard to watch. lol But once I got past that, the story cleared my mind of any fangirling and became an elevated emotional experience.
@beez, true, her life was frozen, but wasn’t the “melting process” agonizingly stunning?
@eda – how well you put things. 👏 👏 👏
And yes, it absolutely was.
@beez, thanks for the compliment.
@beez, I will be Googling “So Ji Sub Sieg Fahrenheit commercials”
please share.
@eda – there were too many to share. So Ji sub started out as a model and so this is just a clothing line (from what I can see) with lots of behind the scenes of the photo shoots.
@beez, but please explain to me, how is it possible, koreans are so conservative, they will not even really kiss on screen – how did they produce and allowed to show and the koreans LOVED it,(from what i read), such eroticism that you rarely see even in western productions. ? can you explain?
@eda – I can only speculate that because one medium comes into the home where children are but the other is a conscious decision for adults to pay to see…
I actually wish our tv shows would remember that. I do remember when our tv would hold the more mature stuff until after 9pm when all little kiddies should be in bed anyway. But parenting nowadays – kids go to sleep when they fall sleep and watch anything with no supervision or parental counseling about what they’re seeing.
BTW – you will see a bit racier Kdramas on the cable networks. Remember you and I were discussing AsianWiki.com? You can see which network the show comes on in S. Korea and that will give you an idea what to expect. JTCB and OCN are cable networks. I can’t think of any others right now.
so the dramas that we watch, like healer, or grapevine… these are for the day time?
@eda – not at all. Those shows you mentioned are similar to what we used to consider “prime time”. (I watch so little American tv nowadays that I don’t know if it’s still called that)
But just as we have ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox which are free tv, S. Korea has MBC, SBS, KBS (which those three by the way are the three networks that formed Kocowa to provide Korean shows on the west.)
There were shows called “dailies” which broadcast on the mornings and this are more equivalent to out soap operas. There you can really see the difference in the quality of production. It’s not bad, it’s just not the same as the shows that broadcast on the evenings.
You can actually see the between and the time a show airs (or aired) on AsianWiki.
sorry for the swypos. That one really got away from me without checking for errors until after I posted it.
@beez, don’t worry about typos, we all suffer from it.
so why are these so called prime time dramas so conservative, to a degree that it’s non- realistic not to see any physical contact, or the kisses are hardly considered kisses, it’s just sucking the top lip or the bottom (funny).
and what time would a movie like a frozen flower be on and on what channel? how does this work, do you know?
@eda – Why would you expect something like A Frozen Flower would be broadcast on regular television at all? Theaters, cable, or maybe a streaming app, but not regular tv.
I actually have grown to appreciate the dry kisses and the minimal skinship. At first, I was like everybody else when I was new to Kdrama and thought the kisses were very lacking. But now I can understand why considering the country’s morals. The largest religion is Christianity and even before that, the country is deeply rooted in Confucianism (hope I spelled that right) which carried very specific and definite rules regarding behavior. You can see how seriously their culture takes Confucianism just by their use of ranks and titles – no one is addressed by their name only, other than parents toward children and even then they ad a suffix to the end of their names that sounds like “-yah”.
For me, years ago, I had become completely bored with western tv leaving almost nothing to the imagination. Even sex can become boring of you don’t get creative 😉 and 🥱😴
The reason that I think the dry kissing is sweet and I find it refreshing is when you consider that if the actors are married, it’s far more respectful to their real- life spouses to not have your tongue thrust down someone else’s throat. I respect the ones who choose not to do that. (There have been a few Kdramas with newly married in real life actors where the most we got was a hug!) And with their ultra conservative views, I suppose the single actresses may feel like a man may not wish to marry them if they’ve done that much deep kissing. (I think Hollywood actors could take a clue from this. Maybe their marriages would last more than 5 years.)
Once you get used to the way things are in Korean culture, then you become as acutely aware of a couple’s status the same way other characters in the drama do. The minute you see a guy and a girl holding hands, you instantly know their status has changed from friends to couple.
This makes me think of how Young shin grabs Bong soo by the wrist but she does not grab him by the hand. (a reversal of sorts because it’s usually the men grabbing women by the wrist). And if she were not trying to be bossy and exert her authority over him as his sunbae, she never would’ve been brazen enough to grab him (especially a man she just met) like that. But also Young shin is not you’re typical Kdrama female character so her behavior here is a bit unusual.
(I know I’m rambling 😖)
But after you’ve watched a lot of dramas where there’s not a lot of skinship, then when two people are thrust into close proximity, mere inches from body contact and face to face – whew! In “Reply 1988” when Dok sun and Jung-Hwan are hiding in a narrow space, you can feel the sexual tension on his part to an amped up degree. In most western tv shows, imo, there is no more sexual tension because the question of “will they, won’t they” has flown out the window. We know they will, and soon.
Actually the Kdramas have come a long way. Don’t be surprised as you watch older dramas – all of the heroines were 29-year old virgins who had never dated anyone. 🤣
I’m not saying that Koreans are these virgins or prudes in real life, but this is the nature of Kdrama. I’ve seen many people complain about it but that doesn’t last long and they keep watching. It seems as if K dramas cast a spell on people so they’re hooked!
Back to your question –
I actually answered as much as I know here, but maybe you missed it:
https://thefangirlverdict.com/2022/02/16/spoiler-zone-healer-episodes-1-2/#comment-111614
https://thefangirlverdict.com/2022/02/16/spoiler-zone-healer-episodes-1-2/
@beez @eda
I mostly agree re minimal skinship, although I don’t think characters in love should be that afraid of touching each other.
And I totally agree that western shows are overdoing it.
My feelings about kissing are more nuanced.
These fish/dry kisses give an impression that Korean nation is a nation of bad kissers.
So, if kissing is not appropriate for tv shows, I’d rather see no kisses at all or SLA-like kisses (where you can’t see much).
@MariaF @Eda harris – need proof Kdrama actors know how to kiss? Here’s a clip from Hyun bin’s movie that shows the boy could teach an advanced class!
Fastfwd to 1:45
https://youtu.be/CyUAjRMAVZs
I’m not recommending this movie though. I found it slow and tedious and I wasn’t very interested in the characters at all. Not to say that you guys won’t like it, I just wasn’t enthralled myself.
@ beez @ eda –
I haven’t seen your movie. But I watched “A man and a woman” with Gong Yoo and
“Never forever” with Ha Jung-woo.
The second movie is a South Korean/American movie, directed by a SK woman-director Gina Kim.
So, sure they know how. What I meant is that, with rare exceptions, you wouldn’t know it from watching SK tv shows.
An interesting fact.
I assume you’ve seen Heirs. So you’ve seen those ““kisses””. I intentionally put the word ‘kisses’ in double quotation marks to emphasize my attitude towards that kissing method.
However, one time the kiss looked real (the one in the closet). And it was. Turns out that the director asked Lee Min-ho to kiss the girl for real. But they didn’t tell the actress about it, because the director supposedly wanted to get a real reaction from Park Shin- Hye.
I think not warning her was a sh**ty thing to do.
.@MariaF – yup to Heirs. Park Shin hye is known for her “ruining a scene” kisses. 😆
I’ve seen A Man and a Woman. I’m unfamiliar with Never Forever. Is it good? (aka with watching?)
I liked it. I can’t say it was great, but it was solid. I thought it explored an interesting subject. And since it’s not a show, you don’t have to go through at least 5 episodes to decide whether it’s watchable.
But this movie is difficult to find.
It’s a love story, but with a other things.
@Maria F – But this movie is difficult to find.
Gotcha. 😉
(I’m interpreting that to mean I’ll have to watch it on The Place Which Shall Not Be Named)
Yes. It can be found on not to be named placed, but the video quality isn’t great there. You can’t see actors eyes and facial expressions, etc. very well. I’m glad I could watch it on Amazon (or Netflix), when it was there. Now it’s gone.
@MariaF – “I mostly agree re minimal skinship, although I don’t think characters in love should be that afraid of touching each other.”
You know, I don’t think that actual Korean couples are “afraid to touch each other” but actual real-life couples, in most cases, don’t do PDA (Public Display of Affection)so, of course, were not going to get to see it on tv.
I like to use what I call my Kdrama Lenses of reading between the lines. If a guy and girl are on the bed together, even though fully clothed, that’s Kdrama Code for they had sex. I can’t think of others right now, but that’s how I interpret things and usually, it makes other things in the drama make sense. For instance if a guy or girl is acting crazily jealous but they haven’t known each other long so it seems like a gross overreaction. But think back to them sitting on the bed… ohhhhh. They had sex so… 😆
Very often, there are no or very “limited” PDAs, even when they are alone.
@MariaF – but that’s because of the nature of Kdrama that we’re discussing – because it’s on broadcast tv and they’re not real life couples.
But I anticipate things changing (they already have… a lot). Netflix is involved and as we know, money talks… Oh wait. Not only Netflix but Disney, Apple TV and seems like there’s another one that I can’t think of right now.🤔 Big hitters though. I anticipate (more like my inner Conspiracy Theory Woman prediction 😆) we’ll be seeing a LOT of more realistic skin-ship & kissing. Personally, I’ll hate to see the innocence go.
@beez- I agree that we will be seeing more. I’ll have to see it to decide whether I like it or not.
@beez, this is truly a multifaceted question and requires a multifaceted answer.
so first of all: aren’t you blown away by a frozen flower where the intimacy it taken to the ultimate realism? so being a christian as you say, isn’t christianity against homosexuality to the extreme? and i understand that you see it as art, and so do i, but where does your religious conviction come into the picture? if it is a too complicated question that i pose to you, i will understand, and you do not need to answer, but it is still a question in my mind. what i think is this: there is NOTHING, BUT NOTHING more powerful than a realistic portrayal of whatever it is: whether it is war, history, intimacy, abuse, corruption… that is how we as humans with emotions and our own experiences can relate and respond accordingly. we NEED to face our own mistakes – and learn.
and even when it is difficult – there is no choice, we need to see it for ourselves, even when it hurts, or embarrassing, disgusting… but we need a mirror to see ourselves.
so i return to the question: aren’t you blown away by the scenes of intimacy on your screen in this movie? and why? so i know, you’ll say art, but there is something even more powerful than art in this – it is the all encompassing relatedness of our emotions to theirs- it is almost an uncontrolled nuclear explosion within yourself – that is how i can describe it.
restricted touching in korean dramas: first of all, it lacks this specific element – realism, the very one that brought us to this topic now and it is sad. it could have been way more affective if it was unitized. no question, this issue of intimacy was overused and abused by western productions – if you consume a great amount of sweets, you’ll get sick, so that’s what happened to me, but of course there were other issues that i had enough of it and as a result got simply bored.
stumbling on the asian dramas was sort of a spring for me, rejuvenation. it was the very first time, that i was watching the rise of the phoenixes that i experienced the full impact of intimacy between prince of chu (chen kun) and fengzhiwei (ni ni) without them touching or minimal touching, and yet the air around them when they appeared on the screen together was ELECTRIC. (i still consider it THE best OTP). so it can be done, but requires much more than those fake annoying kisses that they throw at us. who believes that this is supposed to be “passion”, it is simply symbolic, but not in a smallest way close to what we are supposed to feel, we just intellectually process it as kisses, but do not feel it. by the way, the chinese are much better in this, aren’t they coming out of the same social backgrounds?
and finally, the heroines were 29-year old virgins . we are not talking here about the goreo period, but modern life in korea. so how true to reality is this 29 year old virgin? dramas are based on real life, that’s where they are coming out of? why do we believe that an issue like corruption is real, and this virgin is unreal? where is the truth? or are they real?
@eda – so much to unpack here. lol First let me explain about Christians – not everyone who is a Christian has the correcht understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course everyone says it’s about love, but do they practice that? Or extend it? It’s just like Islam, not all Muslims are radical or terrorists. Not all Christians are bible thumpers who show up at fallen U.S. soldiers funerals and, just because they were gay, carry signs shouting that the fallen soldier is going to hell (and in front of their grieving family!) Homosexuality is sin because the bible tells us it is sin. BUT… the bible also says that gossipers, adulterers, fornicaters, enviers, liars and many more everyday things are all sins. So everyone who does these things are going to hell but that’s exactly why we need a savior – Jesus Christ.
Now eda. In the future, you’ll have to ask me this stuff in an email. You asked publicly so I didn’t want to cop out on what I believe and not answer. But I believe we shouldn’t discuss things here because people of different beliefs do get offended and that’s not what KFG’s blog is about. I’ll answer your Frozen Flower questions in a separate response for this will be too long. I hope you understand.
@eda – First of all, I’m far more worried about (but not really) – are the people performing simulated sex acts on screen married to other people and how will this affect their relationships? (Again, not really though.) 😆 Maybe it’s hypocritical but that doesn’t stop me from watching 😆
I admit, I was disturbed some by the King and his first lieutenant guard’s sex scene, but more because it disturbed my own personal fantasies about Joo Jin mo than the fact that they are homosexuals. 😆 It kind of ruins the fantasy if Oppa is not into women then that rules me out, ya know? 😂🤧 Of course, that was just his character so all’s well.
While I definitely, totally agree that when an important (or serious) subject matter is being covered, realism is a must. Although when it comes to the full sex act – I know what that entails and I personally believe that the full act need not be shown, even on a movie. Just as I believe that I don’t need to see a completely bloody and violent murder on screen – simulated for both acts is enough for me.
But here’s the rub – Kdramas, unless they’re melos, are not trying to relay reality. Besides, we’ve already established that the majority of them come on regular broadcast tv. Maybe in your culture, where you grew up that’s not a problem??? Is that why we’re not connecting on this subject regarding what should and should not be on tv where young children might see it? No harsh judgment – I’m really curious?
You asked “is this true to reality is this 29 year old virgin?” No, I thought when I said that, that I made it clear it’s not true but is the way heroines in older dramas were almost always depicted. (One of the few exceptions is My Name is Kim Samsoon. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s considered a classic and one of the Kdramas that started the “Hallyu Wave” (aka Korean invasion of Kdramas to other cultures. And “Hallyu” is the Korean equivalent of Hollywood). Oh – speaking of cultures, you say “aren’t they coming out of the same social backgrounds?” The answer is “no”. Not at all! That’s like lumping all Latin-based language people together – Mexicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Spaniards – all have completely different cultures. (I wish I could use examples from Eastern European countries, but I’m woefully ignorant of the areas near where you grew up.) There may be a few things culturally in common in Asia but mostly that comes from oppression and colonization of Korea by those surrounding countries. For instance, I often wonder who influenced who when it comes to the Koreans and Japanese removing their shoes before entering a home. I know Koreans have been doing so back to Goreyo (if I’m to believe the dramas on this. I’ve not been able to find any articles about who influenced whom on this subject), but I’ve never seen a Japanese historical so I don’t know.
I’ll probably talk more about Frozen Flower with you via email cause sounds like you want to get into detail. I love my Fangirl Verdict compadres but not enough to spill all my personal, possibly embarrassing thoughts on it. 😆 Besides, there may be people who’ll want to watch the movie without running into spoilers here. 🙂
But here’s the rub – Kdramas, unless they’re melos, are not trying to relay reality.
Hear, hear!
maria, i keep looking at these jackets, and there is no way, i MUST see it. but you mention 2 versions. i found on viki the 2016 year version. is this the one with the irresistible temptation in the form of those jackets? do i need to see both versions? i started the 2016, but not sure that’s the one. please advise. thanks. and is it the same name for both versions? are both with so hilariously funny outfits?
You already started watching the show? Boy, you are fast!
You found the right version.
I didn’t see the earlier one. KFG didn’t like it, so I decided not to watch it, because I didn’t want to ruin the show for me.
So, enjoy those jackets. And pants. And shirts. There is more to come.
your managed to excite my curiosity – it’s your fault! so yes, i am on it. can’t wait for the jackets.
remember, i watch a few dramas at a time, this way i do not get completely obsessed by one of them, to a degree that i stop living my life. not that it helps much, but the obsession is diluted with a few ones rather than just concentrating on one. try it, if you are close to obsessive-compulsive, like me (not clinically, but still on the border line, i believe.)
it’s your fault!
Well, I don’t feel guilty at all.
And I hope you enjoy the show. Remember, the jackets are not the only attraction. There are plenty of kisses too.
thanks. i sure will. all of it.
@eda – So how do you cycle them? One episode each? Two episodes each? How many total a day?
Back when I mostly watched ongoing dramas, I had no trouble watching as many as 14 at one time. But now that I haven’t been interested in the new dramas that have been coming out, I find I’ll pick a couple of older dramas that I never saw but I can’t seem to get off one until I’m done. I’d rather have 3-4 and try to cycle them like you’re saying. But how exactly do you do it?
Excuse me: 14 or 4?
Yep. 14. When I first began watching Kdramas I was literally flat on my back. My son bought me a device so that I could hold a tablet or my phone straight up above my face because my arms would get tired. (I’m better than that now.) Anyway, I watched almost every new show that came down the pike plus, in addition, when the old hosts (now gone) over at Dramabeans.com would make a reference to a past classic Kdrama and everyone else seemed to know what they were talking about just from a few quoted words or a brief reference to a scene – I just had to know what they were talking about so once I’d watched the currently airing episodes of new shows, I’d binge watch the classics so that I’d know what they were referring to.
Kdramas helped me through a very rough patch. 💘 so I’ll always love them even when I get a bit burned out, like now.
I’m glad to hear you are doing better.
I can see how certain Kdramas could help someone to get through tough times. I sometimes rewatch shows, when I’m not well or when my spirits are low.
@beez, when i feel that it is totally under my skin and there is no escape, i literally force myself to switch to another drama, until it gets to a similar point of addiction or… it gets boring…or too much to take (like vicious fighting, not martial art – those i like a lot, but like wars, cruelty, etc., or multiple killings of all my favorite characters and i get pissed…
also i try to balance, meaning it will be one preferably ancient historical chinese (my favorites), one modern korean (preferably with a deep meaning), one chinese rewatch, one korean rewatch and of course the mandatory group dramas. sometimes i am tempted and snick in another drama, like right now i just couldn’t control myself and added the one percent of something to my current involvement with” legend of condor heroes – old chinese version from 2007 (got into it because of hu ge, but discovered another who is even better than hu ge -yuan hong in this drama), korean the imperial coroner (the poverty of the production drives me nuts, and so i am struggling), korean familiar wife (i’m on episode 9 and getting ready to drop it, even that it is with my favorite actors including ji sung, it simply does not succeed to entertain me), rewatching the glamorous imperial concubine (i just finished it not long ago and did not think i’ll rewatch it at all, as the amount of deaths in this drama simply annoyed me, they killed of absolutely everyone except the FL. but after some additional deliberations, i thought that the end could be interpreted differently – that’s when i miss all of you and your input. in addition, the Ml is probably the sexiest man of all sexy men, and on top an insanely good actor – yan yi kuan – so i got into it again, and must say, enjoy it more than the first watch – it’s quite a good drama. that’s my current dramas.
how do i do it? not very good, i sleep very little, 3-4 hours a night, seldom 5 – not by choice, insomnia, but it gives me additional hours to watch dramas till the morning. and in the evening. sometimes, like when i cease to control myself, i watch during the day with an enormous guilt feeling, as i am giving up other things in my life.
ya, that’s the sad reality of those asian dramas. any suggestions, any cures, any remedies???
sorry, the imperial coroner is chinese, not korean.
@Eda – I am working my way through that 2008 Hu Ge Condor Hero version as well. He got into that terrible auto accident towards the end of this drama but you can see how perfectly balanced his face is in the beginning of the drama. I mentioned his scars in the Nirvana group watch. Really, the man is gorgeous with or without scars. But he does tend to leave his hair down on his right side after the accident which you will notice as we get towards the end. I am so glad to hear that you are watching this and I really hope you are enjoying it!
I really hope you are enjoying it!
i sure do, no question, although i hit a rough patch, when they are all on the peach blossom island and all these discussions and hunts for that special manual of some advanced martial arts technics, in the cave (this little guy, who’s been in that cave for 15 years, imprisoned by the evil dad of our FL – i am not thrilled about his acting, overplayed and oversimplified by acting crazier than necessary) and then later when hu ge leaves and they are all on the ocean. it’s just too much, going on and on. should have been reduced. that’s were i am now, and left it for a while, but definitely coming back.
phl1rxd, i am also glad that we are watching the same drama, without any coordination on our part. anyway, what do you think of yuan hong, he plays yang kang. we saw him in TROP, jin si yu, the evil prince of the island surrounded by water and the one who tricked feng zhiwei to believe that she’s his wife. anyway, he did not really impress me in that role, but in the legend, the young actor is just phenomenal, (so handsome but also so expressive) in my opinion. it also helps that his character is all encompassing human nature, it’s the yin and yang in him so fully explored, the inner fight of the good and the evil. most interesting character. are you also “swept away” by him?
@eda – I do have this trick to stop myself when the cliff hangers just keep me binging exposure after episode:
Instead of watching to the end of an episode where I know the cliffhanger is going to pull me in to want to start another, I’ll watch half way. Then the next time I pick it up, I’ll watch the last half and then watch the next episode until halfway through that episode. That results in affectionately 1 hour of watching. That way no tricky cliffhangers to tempt and compel me to watch the next episode.
This tee shirt is$275
@eda – Nope. I wanted to know what you think. 😆 I’m very similar. A bad wig is all it takes to make me unable to get into a story.
As for the Korean actors (I can’t speak for Chinese because I haven’t watched enough of their dramas), but Koreans, aside from a few of the older male actors or character/supporting actors – usually the leads have flawless skin (at least as far as what shows through their makeup). I’ve heard that most Korean teens regularly see the dermatologist, the way that we see the dentist. (I’m not saying they don’t regularly see the dentist. That I don’t know. But I’m saying that the dermatologist is just a normal routine compared to us who most only see one when there’s a skin problem or very bad acne.) I wish we had the skin scrubbing sauna rituals that Koreans do with their families. It seems so cleansing and refreshing.
As for actors & actresses fashion – Gong Hyo-Jin and my favorite actress Shin Hye sun are the worst offenders! In the drama Still 17, Shin Hye sun’s clothes were so awful and baggy. And I know it wasn’t her interpretation of the role because I’ve seen her in too many other roles dressing the same way. I believe wardrobe did help her when she had to play a rich girl in My Golden Life and also when she played a well-to-do ballerina in Angel’s Last Mission.
There’san older actress named Park Jun-Keum (she always plays extremely hateful mothers-in-law roles, most famously in Secret Garden), she started acting later in life and is independently wealthy – she tends to dress way over the top with her own personal wardrobe. The clothes are, imo, too youthful for her and many times are elaborate, overdone things you’d only see on the runway. Most designer’s elaborate and dramatic pieces are modified for regular wear unless it’s a celebrity purchasing it to wear at some movie premiere or something.
I’ve always wondered about Gong Yoo’s wardrobe on Goblin. The quality of everything is just spellbinding to me, even down to something as simple as his turtlenecks! Are those his clothes or did Show dress him for the role? Simply exquisite! When I think that those might be his own personal clothes, I’m melting for him even more that I already do. (Maybe even more than the pics on KFG’s site of him practically sans clothes.) *fanning break*
I know all of this is super shallow but I’ve always been this way – about fashion, not men. 😆 I mean we all know I’m shallow about men now but I’m talking about, for example, when Star Wars (the first movie) came out. I was 18 years old and a group of us all went to see it. While everyone else was talking about how Luke was swinging on that wire to rescue Leia, I was talking about the cut of his futuristic lapels. And this was long before I went to fashion school in my late 40’s. That’s just how I process the world around me, through fashion aesthetics. So it’s just something that’s important to me even if, at times, I wish I could just let a bad wig go and enjoy the story. Nope. I’m always thinking – Even if the budget is tight, couldn’t they get a spare $200 from somewhere for a decent wig?
i know exactly WHAT you are talking about, as i am so similar in that. but why are you calling yourself shallow? is this some kind of a sarcastic joke? i do not consider myself shallow, and definitely do not consider you shallow. let’s put it this way, we have a heightened sense of aesthetics (for me it’s in everything, nature, art, literature, interior design, architecture, philosophy, life…)
@eda – well, I definitely know there are far more important things in life but I do tend to rank gain higher on the scale of what’s important than most people would think is healthy. Plus, on this blog, we have a running gag about my shallowness when it comes to my criteria for watching Kdrama because I won’t watch if the male lead doesn’t appeal to me (the only exception being if FL is one of my favorites).
all right then, stick to your guns. still not qualifying for shallowness, sorry. it just means you have your standards.
@eda – you must not have seen some of my “thirsty” posts on the Gong Yoo, Jang Hyuk, Song Seung heon KFangurl threads. 🤪😂😂😂
@beez, you must not have seen some of my “thirsty” posts
i truly regret, would love to see it, but i did not.
@eda – I don’t make as many thirsty comments nowadays because we don’t get as much fan service in dramas as we used to. “Fan service” is Kfandom-speak for shirtless/shower scenes. 🙂
I think the producers know that between the “me too” movement and the more universal appeal/world wide popularity of Kdramas, now they need to go for more sophistication and less blatant pandering to us fangirls. 😥🤧
@beez- You think general public/world is looking for sophistication? Hmm.
@MariaF – I probably didn’t express it well. It’s just that up until 2020, Kdrama had been a different nichè (pretend I chose the right accent over the e there) \_(ツ)_/¯ audience. The fan service was more cute and cheesy than naughty but geared toward women. Kdramas were more like Harlequin romance stories than anything to be taken remotely seriously, even the melos. Ever noticed that the majority of Kdrama writers are women?
I can feel the change, not only in the dramas themselves but even here on Kfangurl’s site. It’s just a different audience that expects a somewhat different style of storytelling.
Here’s a screenshot that I sent to my son years ago as my “proof” that Korean dramas are written by women.😄😂🤣
Got it! And I probably would’ve felt offended, if shows like ‘Heirs’ or ‘Another miss Oh’ were written by men.
Truth to be told, I haven’t seen enough Korean shows, especially the newest ones, to make a judgment.
I saw my first Korean show at the end of 2019 (it was “Something in the rain”). My reaction was “WTF?!!”.
So I watched a few more shows (including ‘Healer’), stumbled upon and was absolutely blown away by ‘Secret love affair’ and ‘My mister’, watched a few more after that, and then I stopped. I saw ‘Vincenzo’, but I think I fast forwarded pretty much half of the show.
I sometimes rewatch shows that I like, although I know that not all of them are good objectively.
I’m planning on getting back into the fold.
@MariaF – So am I correct in ascertaining that your drama taste leans more towards the more realistic side?
How do you feel about melos?
And please tell me that despite your bent toward the serious that you’ve watched Crash Landing On You?????
I would say I lean towards realistic acting, not serious subjects. A bit of silly is fine, but screaming, making crazy eyes, pulling hair out and being wooden is not my cup of tea.
I read a story once about a director, who worked in a provincial theater.
During rehearsals his little dog sat under his chair. Every time, as soon as rehearsals ended, the dog would immediately show up, ready to leave. That dog somehow knew, that the rehearsal was over.
One time an actor from a big city came to that town to play in that theater. The rehearsal started, and at some point that actor started talking. The dog immediately showed up. Apparently, that actor spoke so naturally, that the dog decided, that the rehearsal was over.
I like this kind of acting, funny or not.
Also, certain subjects don’t interest me. For example, I don’t enjoy watching shows like ‘Something in the rain’, where characters over 30 act like 14 year olds.
I did watch CLOY! Netflix kept throwing that show at me, until I gave up and started watching it. I watched the whole thing, and I liked it.😊
@MariaF – I think you would really like Guardian aka Lookout. It stars actress Lee Si Young who, is an amateur boxer in real life. Her action scenes are the most real fight scenes involving a woman fighting men that I’ve ever seen. (As a past martial artist, one of my biggest pet peeves is how unrealistic those scenes usually are.🙄)
And the acting by Kim Young-Kwang totally changed me from seeing him as “just okay” after previously having only seen him in rom-coms to becoming a fan.
Here’s the link to Lookout if you want to check out the synopsis. https://asianwiki.com/Lookout_(Korean_Drama)
@merij – btw – it also has Kim Seulgi in an interesting role.
Thank you beez. I’ll check it out.
maria, i am kind of like you in terms of appreciating realistic acting.
but if it bothers you to see immature women on screen, how did you like 1% of something? the FL seems to be SO immature, but i am just at the episode 5.
I agree that she acts young sometimes (she is only 26, after all), but she is not immature.
She lives alone, not with her parents (independent). She works.
Also, she never lets ML to intimidate or dominate her: she always stands up to him, although he is older and a member of a Chaebol family.
When she finally agreed to date him, she negotiated their contract and got what she wanted from him.
And there is more to come.
FL from SITR was 35, for
G-d’s sake!
all true. but what i meant is when it comes to emotional stuff (are you kidding, 26 years old, she should have had a few experiences) she completely has no inkling of what to do with it. it’s clear that both are falling for each other, but adhere to stupid rules in the contract, really? they are way beyond the contract, and they CAN NOT TOUCH? even when they finally kiss, they insist of “no more”, going against their own human instincts. i simply do not buy it.
@eda-
It’s such a silly show, it feels funny to debate it. But ok, let’s take it seriously.
She is inexperienced, because she is very picky. Comments made by her best friend and her best friend’s brother told us that.
They fight their mutual attraction, because neither of them wants this relationship to become serious. She doesn’t want to be entangled in his world of rich and powerful a**h**s.
And, while he is not a guy to marry just for money, it’s expected that his marriage advances his family’s business.
I believe he became attracted to her not because of her “niceness”, but because of her strong personality.
She is a very kind person. But she doesn’t not let him to take her for granted. Or to bully her into doing something she doesn’t want to do.
Remember how he said to his lawyer: “She hasn’t changed”. But she forced him to change and to respect her, despite the fact that he is very rich and has more power.
Also, the fact that she looked good in all those sexy clothes didn’t hurt.
maria, she looked good in all those sexy clothes
is this your perfect annual joke? tell me, it was a joke, please.
It’s such a silly show, it feels funny to debate it. so true.
but i do agree with you on your assessment of her character and strength of her personality. i also believe that his attraction was mainly because of that. and may be because she did not care about his money or position – he never encountered this before, which also meant that she liked him for him and not what he has or represents. this can be very powerful.
and i love love the story with the dog!
I know what you mean, I’m a copy-editor and see typos or writing errors everywhere.
Oh. I’m in trouble!
In Romanian, not English 🙂
Alexandra, editors are worth their weight in gold.
Actually, since watching k-drama I found myself amased at the flawless skin of Korean actors. But, like you, I was surprised to see Healer’s pimples in some of the close-up shots 🙂
One spring night is one of my favorite shows and I liked how the FL
dressed, but I did think it was surprisingly conservative for a modern drama,
because in most dramas many FL often have very very short skirts or pants even
in the office!
i can’t remember if any of the main female characters wear short skirts in that drama.
I think you’re right, they all wear long skirts.
maria and alexandra, but it is not only her midi-skirts, it’s her shirts – some of them with the huge bows, or pleaded sleeves – just in general, her outfits were not belonging to this drama. her girl friends at her job were mostly in pants and sport shirts, just simple but fitting the environment. her older sister was conservative-elegant, (ok) and the younger sister looked like she came from a different drama, but she was dressed the best. and the ML was always perfect. (i think the men are probably bored to death with our chats), so they must excuse us.
“her outfits were not belonging to this drama”
Why not? The three sisters had different personalities and different fashion styles. What’s wrong with that?
I agree that FL’s style was a bit strange for a young woman, but not all young women are the same…
The three sisters had different personalities and different fashion styles. of course, but the fl’s style was more than just strange, it was outdated (and in a way, out of reality for this particular time period) to a degree that bugged me…
maria, i guess what really threw me off is the huge gap between her very modern woman’s thinking process and old lady way of dressing. it did not go together.
I can see where you are coming from. She definitely doesn’t dress like a young and very modern woman. On the other hand, I wouldn’t say she dresses like an old lady.
There are a few older women in that show (both mothers, the pharmacy owner). Their clothes are different: no asymmetrical skirts, bows, etc.
This is how her clothes are described on some fashion blog:
“To describe Jeong-in’s style is part academia, you’ll see a lot of tweed blazers and scarves and very metropolitan. Everything about her personal style says city life and that she is a modern woman, who turns out is not afraid of a little complication.”
It’s interesting that, while there is romance in this drama, FL doesn’t wear any “sexy” outfits at any time. I think it’s not a coincidence.
Something I find very interesting since I’ve recently watched a few Japanese dramas is that the women (in the dramas that I’ve seen) tend to dress very conservatively – long skirts past (lower than) mid calf, almost to the ankles and modest tops. The reason I find that strange is the Japanese relaxed view on sexual matters. (I started to say morals but who am I to say it’s a question of “morals” or lack thereof when I know nothing about their culture? Yet Korean culture which has very stringent views on sex wear the uber super short, short skirts. I’m just observing and if anyone has more info on this, please expound.
@Alexandra – Han Ji-min dresses like that IRL. Look for images of her at press conferences and the like.
So I suspect she did provide her own wardrobe for OSN. (One of me and my wife’s all-time favorites shows too!)
.
i see what you trying to say. may be it WAS her choice. but where were the costume designers in this production? MIA.
One thing I learned after a few months watching these shows is that I was unfairly judging them by the standards of a premium limited series, such as the ones on HBO and now Netflix and other streaming channels.
Because that’s how good the ones I had seen at that point actually were.
But for the most part, these are just regular broadcast TV shows.
And their budgets are limited. Where they choose to cut costs and where they choose to invest resources is not necessarily the same as we assume based on western programming.
Somehow, the norm developed that actors often provide their own wardrobe. They probably don’t even think that’s unusual.
Except for the sageuks , obviously! lol
Ok. So she has multiple fashion personalities.
Personas. I prefer to think of it as multiple fashion personas. (smile)
Those anachronistic ruffles were probably a short-lived period in her fashion sense, that happened to coincide with the show.
HJM’s a really cool person, by the way. Spends a lot of her time supporting charities in places like the Philippines.
Same here! So glad you both liked it so much, I watched it several times and when I’m in the mood for a feel good show that I already know I take a look at one of this show’s episodes.
don’t get me wrong, i did love the show, as well as all other shows of ahn pan-seok that i saw, and i am not finished.
meri, i know i own you one, a report i promised on one spring night. the day will come, it’s just there is so much other dramas right now that keep me on my toes. but i remember my promise.
I was surprised to see Healer’s pimples in some of the close-up shots
he’s not alone. watch ji sung, whom i love, but pimples – a plague. and the chinese are even worse, or may be it’s because i watch quite a few of chinese dramas. the top actors, flawless game, but pimples and craters on the skin from previous skin problems. the chinese (i do not know about koreans) have top healing methods and knowledge since ancient times, don’t they have something for the skin?
there is a chinese movie, falling flowers (by the way, i consider it a must for anyone who appreciates asian productions to watch it) but the ML, huang jue, i have never seen a face so disfigured by severe acne, it was painful to watch, although a very good actor. but i do not understand, how the chinese are not bothered by such.
@Eda – I just watched Falling Flowers and that was really a hard watch. Whew! It was so terribly sad and a true story to boot. Huang Jue probably had cystic acne when young which requires strong antibiotics to clear up. I feel for him as it must have been hard growing up with this condition. A laser facial peel may help him now. However, I did stop noticing it after a while as his acting was so very good in this movie. He is the bus driver in Reset.
phl1rxd, I just watched Falling Flowers
there is another movie, also xiao hong’s biographical, she’s the one from falling flowers, but very different. it is the golden era , by ann hui, a very accomplished, smart, interesting director, screen writer, producer and actress, i would recommend to watch this one too, the actress tang wei is brilliant. it’s completely different, although i liked better falling flowers because of this amazing unique artistic angle. the whole movie feels like poetry that just pulls at your heart strings.
And it did not feel like an ad for a clothing brand!
@eda -yes, he’s in control of almost every situation but because of his own insecurities and issues with abandonment, he’s very clingy with Young chin. Having the people that are important to Young shin approve of him in her life would make the nerves-of-steel Healer nervous!
@beez, from what i have seen, it is of utmost importance for the koreans (and chinese) to get approval of parents in order to even date with a person. i think that’s a tradition, culture that healer must be aware of, and that is the reason he would want her adopted father’s approval. on the other hand, he does not behave like this, until young shin tells him to behave like a boyfriend – enter through the door, greet her dad and uncle, ask their permission to date her. only then does he do all those things, but even then he slips (in opposite to tradition), he kisses her on her mouth in front of them. that is a big no-no, from what i gather. so he’s not that nervous and not that desperate for their approval, if he dares to behave like this.
@eda – that just proves the point – Healer doesn’t know the appropriate way to behave in this situation. Of course he would know the cultural tradition of family approval – he’s a recluse but he still goes out into society to perform his Healer duties – but he doesn’t know how to act as a boyfriend (and especially in that stressful situation at the time that he kissed her what with everything (their relationship) on the line).
For example, a person may know all the rites that are observed when attending a wedding but small talk is elusive to them. In Healer’s case, because he doesn’t have to worry that Dad or Ahjusshi could successfully beat him up (unless he lets them), and because he’s more worried about the facts behind his father’s death, which may mean he cannot be with Young shin – he forgets about what may or may not be acceptable in that moment of kissing Young shin because it may be their last kiss ever.
@eda – let me add to my last comment. I’d bet Healer could pretend to be a boyfriend successfully if called upon to do so as an assignment (say if he and his female assistant went undercover) but when it really means something to him, that’s when we see his inability to get it right. Remember how he couldn’t explain to Youngshin’s Dad who he really was or what/why things were happening so he let Young shin explain? THAT stutter was real then! 😆
I agree that the stutter was real then. Healer is definitely not a talkative type. Although he decided to stay in journalism, he chose a career of a photographer, not of a writer.
But I don’t think Healer kissed Youngshin in front of her dad, because he forgot or didn’t know how to behave properly. He was in the midst of an emotional upheaval. Youngshin almost rejected him a few minutes ago, and now she practically tells him she loves him.
To quote As SunJae in SLA, “men kiss at times like that”.
That’s sort of what I meant except normal Korean men would never “forget themselves” or the circumstances – her parents being there/looking on – like that. Nope. It just isn’t done.
I’ll have to defer to you on that, because the only place I’ve ever met Korean men is my tv’s screen.
@MariaF – well to be honest, the only Koreans that I’ve known were Korean-Americans. Of course, I knew their father, my Tae Kwon do master, a first generation immigrant, but he and I would never have had such a conversation. 😆 Just thinking about how such a conversation with him would go cracks me up! 😂 So my information comes from 9 years of watching Kdramas, the Korean-Americans that used to host the Dramabeans web site, and research into the culture, not first-hand knowledge.
It just isn’t done. i totally believe you, in general YES. but he is really different, and so the drama has an allowance for that and for him. you know, exception of the rule. that’s why i do not think that he forgot himself, he just did what he felt at the moment, and that moment was super powerful to move him in that direction.
@eda – I don’t disagree on what motivated him. But we were discussing is his awkwardness real. I believe his not being around “polite society” is what makes the difference you’re talking about. I still say if Healer had been raised with parents/grandparents, and had not isolated himself, no matter the depth and strength of emotions he would not have kissed Young shin in front of her family.
But let’s watch and see, maybe one of us might change our minds as we watch again. (You know it probably won’t be me after having watched it so many times already. 😆) And maybe you’ll still feel the same. We shall see.
To quote As SunJae in SLA, “men kiss at times like that”. uhhh, this is a good one.
he couldn’t explain to Youngshin’s Dad who he really was or what/why things were happening. he is still dependent on the notion that his identity must be kept secret. even that he would like to somehow explain things to young shin’s adoptive dad, it is difficult for him to come up with the truth, after having to live in secret for 8 years, and his whole existence depended on that secrecy.
I don’t know…
While I was watching that scene, I got an impression that it was difficult for Healer to tell a story coherently, because he just wasn’t used to “telling stories“.
It had nothing to do with secrecy.
Also, if I’m not mistaken, even his teacher said once that Healer had autistic tendencies.
These tendencies might explain why it was relatively easy for him to retrieve from the world, among other things. Some people would go crazy.
Yup. That’s it. He was not hiding that he was an “errand boy” Healer or his real identity from dad and Ahjusshi at that time.
ya, i definitely felt his autistic tendencies throughout. but i still think that secrecy is the problem here, it is so ingrained in him. compounded with his less than enthused attitude about telling stories in general (of course, living alone, no family and no social life whom would he be telling stories?) he did have some kind of exchanges (we see it when he has flashbacks while living with his teacher, one of the friends from the photograph of the 5 and his dad’s friend.)
ok, scrap this (my comment above) i simply was not talking about this specific episode, i forgot about it. now that you reminded me , i really need to go and rewatch it. but clearly it is not the “secrecy” issue, as i said before.
Nope. That’s not what happened. He was attempting to tell how his dad and Young shin’s dad knew each other and that he and Young shin knew each other as kids, and why he’s fighting The Elder now. They were revealing his real identity to Dad at the time. This is why we need to wait until we get to these later episodes to discuss this part further.
i guess i did not remember that one. do you remember the episode number, so i can go back to it? i mean we are on the spoiler zone, so we can talk about the whole story without waiting for specific episodes. that is the reason it was created, am i wrong?
I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to dictate what you can or can’t talk about. I just said that because I could tell you didn’t remember exactly what was happening in that scene. I don’t know the exact episode. Let’s see. The OTP consummated in Eps 13-14 (I think). So it’s some time after Ep 14 but I don’t know the exact episode. It’s after Dad and Ahjusshi were tied up and “Bong soo” revealed he’s Healer because he rescued them. Then he proceeded to try to tell Dad his real identity as Jung hoo.
thanks. that rings the bell.
I think it’s the last episode.
@beez and maria, i actually did not see maria’s response to me below, i guess i just got off the computer before seeing it. so i started looking for this episode from episode 12, skipping, but still it took a long time, since maria is right, i finally found it on the very last episode. darn, if i would only see maria’s first!
so now i agree with you, it was no secrecy involved in any way in the episode with the adoptive dad, but mainly he is not good in verbally articulating his thoughts + plus it is awkwardness of the situation entirely.
but i must add, that i do not regret going through all these episodes, although in a rush to find what i wanted. it did refresh my memory, which was not very clear on some scenes, as there were a lot of other dramas occupying my brain after the healer watch.
i was amazed, that no matter which episode or scene i stumbled on while searching, it immediately draw me in, just like the first time, even that i knew the outcome. i simply would not want to let it go, i wanted to just continue watching it, i had to force myself to tear myself of it. and it happened with absolutely EVERY ONE. that’s how unbelievably spectacular this drama is!
and one more thought came to my mind, see what you think about it. we were talking here that his awkwardness stems from lack of a family, lack of love, lack of solid relationships (i am paraphrasing), etc. but in reality, he did have somewhat a father figure – a papa bear, as he called himself and a teacher. provided, this is not a regular family unit, but there are a lot of kids growing up with one parent, and sometimes it would be an adoptive parent. this papa bear was totally invested in him and tried to teach him to be the strongest possible, so nobody would be able to abuse him. his techniques were a bit unconventional, let’s put it this way. but i have no doubts that he LOVED him and young healer loved him back. after all, papa bear gave up his own life for this kid he raised. who would do it? and the way healer reacted – he was completely crushed, there is no doubt he loved this papa bear in a very real, humanly possible way.
now ajuma. it was said here that they never even met and so there is no emotional connection. i must disagree. after healer already resigned or was fired (whatever), but not in the business with his partner ajuma any longer, (and she said she does things only when she’s getting paid), she is totally invested in helping him, without pay. she cares for him, and she does have an emotional connection to him, almost a motherly connection.
so he does have people that love him, although not too many. i believe that all this did have an imprint on this emotional state.
Oh, Eda. Too bad you didn’t see my comment.
Yes. Healer had people who cared about him, but did he know that? Because that’s important. Those “secret loves” don’t do much good to a person.
Healer’s father commits suicide. His mother leaves to get herself a new family, because, apparently, “it’s too hard for her to care for him”.
The teacher, who became Healer’s family and lived with him for a few years, also gets up one day and practically says: “I’m leaving you to spend time with women. Oh, you are crushed? Get over it”. And not even a phone call after that.
Ajuma’s motherly love, before all these events unfolded, was mainly limited to giving him assignments, handling his money and telling him “Don’t think too much”.
Talk about imprint!
Although Youngshin also had a very difficult childhood, she fared better, because her adoptive father STAYED with her. She knew he loved her.
maria, did his father commit suicide?? i did not get that impression. what and where did i miss it, that would be so important. can you tell me more?
Healer had people who cared about him, but did he know that? i think he did. the teacher was all there for him, after his grandmother died. i think he was totally devoted to him like a true “papa bear”, and healer’s heart must have felt it. they spent a lot of time together, days, evenings, nights, next to each other. he trained him, they cooked together, joked, fooled around, and if i remember correct he even pushed him to study and get his high school diploma. and he left when healer was 20 years old, that is not exactly a young child. it is different when abandonment happens to a young child. and of course, it was a shock to young healer, but the teacher arranged his connection to ahjuma and this job that he inherited from his teacher himself. he also was in touch with ahjuma and keeping track of his “bear cub”, although healer did not know it at the time. but at the most critical moment teacher gave his life in exchange for his young disciple’s life, adopted son’s, student’s…i can not imagine young healer did not feel that he was loved by this “papa bear”. later on, after papa bear is killed, we see that extent of healer’s connection to this man in his life.
with ahjuma, i felt all along that she cares about healer not just like a partner or boss or coworker. just the way she nudged him about his lifestyle… there was some warmth in all of this. and i believe that she would not have been the first one that picked up that he’s in love, and she was the first one he confessed about it. he’s actually a very introverted and closed character, and if he shared it with her, he must have felt some degree of closeness.
yes, it is not much in terms of relationships, but it is not a zero also. and of course, young shin had it much better, although she was very aware that her parents “threw her out” and a constant question of why, and are they alive and do they ever think of her. so in a way, these two connected on that common basis that created a common bond.
o, and in regards to his mother. i think, she left because it would create additional dangers or problems to healer if she would have stayed with him. (why, i can’t exactly remember) but i need to watch those scenes again, as that is what is stuck in my mind.
did his father commit suicide??
Suicide was the official reason of his father’s death. Healer overheard teachers from his school talking about it. He didn’t tell anyone that he knew.
When his teacher returned from that exotic place, full of women, Healer asked him for the explanation.
He asked the teacher (I’m paraphrasing, of course): “My father had my mother, he had me. Why did he kill himself?”.
That’s when the teacher told Healer the rest of the official version: his father supposedly killed his friend for money, and then killed himself out of guilt.
You know the rest. Healer eventually learned that that friend was Youngshin‘s biological father, etc.
The teacher was there for him, then left. Twenty years old or not, this definitely made his abandonment issues worse. He wasn’t precious enough for anyone to stay and love him.
Of course, Healer eventually discovered that he had people on his side. But it was much later.
maria, yes, that was the official version of healer’s father’s death. but in reality, doesn’t healer learn later that he was killed and not by his friend? am i imagining?
I thought it turned out not to be true. But that’s an ancient memory speaking.
Yes. Much later.
Until then, this is how Healer’s reality looked like:
his father committed suicide, his mother left him and got herself another husband and a son, his grandmother died, his teacher left him after a few years to chase after women, and he had an employer, who didn’t even bother to meet with him. Also, he spent time in some kind of juvenile correctional facility.
True summary. Sucks to be Healer. Until this point in his life!
The point I was trying to make is this: even if they all loved him, did feel loved? I very much doubt it.
grim reality. you might be right, at this particular point of his life he might not have felt love. i bow in reverence (no, i am serious) to that fierce analytical-logical brain of yours. your convinced me (sort of).
😢🤧
@eda – But, alas, Teacher abandoned him too. Teacher loved him and , yes, Teacher sacrificed and put his life on hold to raise him, but ultimately, he abandoned him too.
@beez, at that time the young man was already 20 years old. in general, when you loose a loved one, even when this loved one is a 100 years old, the pain is still tough to take.
so of course it hurt, especially that it was so sudden, but it does not negate the years that the teacher was his “papa bear” and served like an adoptive parent.
I didn’t say it did “negate” them. I’m just stating a fact. It’s not a problem that Teacher choose to go live his life the way he wanted to, but to cut off all contact to the point that the only way Healer could contact him is through Ahjumma. And apparently, Teacher was not responding when Healer tried to reach him all of this years. Teacher only responded when Ahjumma informed him of the threat to Healer by The Elder. So yes, Teacher was even willing to sacrifice his life but that doesn’t change the hurt, especially for someone who already has abandonment issues. Teacher may be the type of man who thinks things like feelings are not important. There are a lot of older men who think “If I feed you, clothe you and put a roof over your head – you’re straight. That’s all you need and with my doing that, you should know I love you.”
In a personal example, my ex would jump in front of a moving train for our son but he has wierd ways of thinking about the way you show love. He has never kissed our son. Now that my son and I live in another state, he will hug him when he hasn’t seen him in a long time. But from birth to about 28 there were only handshakes and incredibly hard back slaps.
to cut off all contact to the point that the only way Healer could contact him is through Ahjumma. ya, that was super weird to me and i remember being pissed that teacher would behave like this. and till today, it remains a question, i do not understand the reason for him doing so and the reason the drama felt that it was necessary to introduce it with such extreme. to increase the effect of abandonment issue? or any other reason?
and yes, people do have weird ideas and behaviors, like your ex. i also knew somebody that kind of was like that. but sorry for your son.
I think you are right that they did it to increase the effect of abandonment. There is no other explanation for the teacher’s behavior.
And for Healer’s mother’s as well. I didn’t even get mad at Healer’s mother for what she did. I just attributed her story to lazy writing.
maria, attributed her story to lazy writing. yes, that was another one that didn’t stick. thanks god there were not too many of those in this drama, as other dramas have it.
but do you think the teacher cutting all contact with healer (after sleeping, eating, playing, training and basically raising this kid) is also a case of lazy writing? it is somehow so unrealistic, almost hurting one’s sense of intelligence, that a person (with a heart to “adopt” his good friend’s kid) would be able to do it this way; unless he had his own idea, that something like this would somehow make healer’s core world into ice or steel, so nothing would hurt him in the future (in one word – protection).
It wasn’t the most creative writing, for sure.
Forget about Healer missing the teacher. Wouldn’t the teacher miss the boy, if he had a heart?
And if it’s a case of “protection”, the cure is worse than the disease. There is no such thing as ‘nothing could hurt you’, unless you are a robot or a psychopath.
Wouldn’t the teacher miss the boy, if he had a heart? that’s exactly what i was thinking. but then what do you think is behind it all?
Since the teacher isn’t Healer’s parent, we can think of a few reasons why he left.
Maybe he felt that Healer was old enough and needed to learn how to be independent and to live on his own.
Maybe he thought that he fulfilled his obligations and wanted to live a little.
Healer asked the teacher why he’d left and didn’t call him, even once. The teacher answered that he felt as if a stone in his stomach turned every time he saw Healer. Didn’t explain why. Maybe because the teacher felt guilty that he didn’t investigate his friend’s death properly.
So, there are lots of possible reasons for leaving, including lazy writing.
But I can find no reasonable explanation of why the teacher never called. Well, as that millionaire guy said in “Some like it hot”, “nobody’s perfect”. Even this show.
Teacher seamed weird, but he did experience some pretty traumatic things which could have made him this way. He was in the team of broadcasting friends, got wrongfully arrested and spent 11 years of his best years in prison, probably in awful conditions. When he was released he found out that two of his best friends were dead and, even worse, one supposedly killed the other. The third friend was now suspiciously well off and married to his best friend’s wife who is in a wheelchair. He would have had enough reasons to flee away. Still, he put his life on hold once more and decided to take care of his best friend’s abandoned son and he did so for many years. I think it is quite understandable that when his student was of age he chose to leave him and finally live a life of his own choice. However, he did keep an eye on Healer through ajhuma. Maybe the reason he chose not to contact Healer directly might have been his desire not to yield to the love he had for Healer and come back. As we see, he did come back at once when he heard Healer was in danger.
alexandra, this is quite a viable conclusion, i didn’t even think this way. but now that you are saying it, i think it might very well be one of the possibilities.
those questions of why the teacher left the way he did, and the entire issue of abandonment continued swirling in my mind.
i watched the 3d episode, and you see healer taking of with delivery girl’s motorcycle, and the way he rides it, looks like teacher on a similar motorcycle following the car that was transmitting their radio address, and “amusing himself” with the police trying to catch the young reporters, same bad-assery. it seems like teacher really transferred all his knowledge, skills and ways to his student, adopted son, disciple. whether it’s riding the motorcycle, or martial arts, or even the place he lived with him, – he completely set him up that healer can function and support himself on his own. he trained him very harsh and it looks like required discipline, and so being that strict (otherwise jh would not be able to become healer 2) it just might be that he had in mind to toughen him up even more, like i said before to make his core world steal and iron), so he can survive in this rather cruel world (as experienced by teacher and his friends.) so these are the 2 possibilities that i can see now.
@eda – that’s the best explanation I’ve heard to date for Teachers behavior.
I don’t think I can agree with this assessment.
In my mind, there are two separate aspects of the teacher’s leaving: the fact that he left, and how he left.
The fact that the teacher left seems reasonable to me. I agree with Alexandra. Healer was young, but he wasn’t a child anymore. The teacher taught him what he knew (how to cook, how to fight and how to survive). He deserved and needed a break.
The way the teacher left is a different story. I don’t know about toughening a child up, but this kind of leaving definitely can make that child bitter and possibly unable to form any meaningful connections or relationships with other people. Especially a child with Healer’s history.
As far as I’m concerned, the writer wanted to make healer’s abandonment issues more acute, so they used the teacher as a tool to do that. There are a few situations in this show that made me raise my eyebrows, but I figured it was not a big deal: the OTP is too adorable to be picky.
I agree that maybe the writer wanted to make Healer’s abandonment issues more acute, but still some men are just that insenible, they do exist in the real world.
100%
@MariaF – that’s what I can’t wait to discuss – Healer’s mother’s actions. But I’ll wait.
Let’s face it, Teacher was weird (they picked the perfect two actors to play him younger and older although the older one looked too old compared to his peers). But back to the point, I just found Teacher weird all the way ’round. Loveable, but weird.
@beez, agree, weird. but i thought that it is the same actor playing the teacher younger of older.
Young teacher on top
Old teacher on button
@beez, still looks to me like the same actor. his expressions, mannerisms, body language – looks the same to me. do you know that these are two different actors? i didn’t find it.
Oh Kwang-rok played the teacher.
Choi Dong-gu played his younger version.
so that’s how it is. thanks, i missed it. amazing choice of actors.
@eda – Even more amazing to me is how much the actor that plays Healer’s dad’s smile looks so much like JCW’s. Watch for it.
Yes, I saw that too! I also think that the young version of the friends are really well cast, they look like the older version of themselves.
in general, the casting in this show is just THE best. so good! i love all of them, the bad and the good guys, rarely happens. i can always have a grudge for someone, on something. not here.
@eda harris – I find your statement on this very interesting. I hope you expound on that later on when we see more of Moon ho’s older brother in action. But not now. I was actually worried that we all were not going to have anything left to talk about later. 😆
@beez, ok, i have to explain. i love the characters, the way they were written, so rich, so complete – all of them. it does not mean that i like their personalities, like the secretary of moon ho – i call him the little worm. or moon ho himself.
Haha! The Worm is so fitting. I always thought of him before this as The Weasel, but I think The Worm is exactly right!
@eda – I’m just now seeing this (for some reason this response never came through my emails from KFG’s site). But I’m chuckling because of the subject of our emails this morning.) 😆
stressful situation at the time that he kissed her what with everything (their relationship) on the line). yes to stressful, it bugs him a lot that it might be that his father killed her father, and in general that his parent is a murderer. but is their relationship on the line? she clearly tells him that he should come back to her no matter what he discovers. none of them are ready to give up on the other, and they make it clear. nice OTP here.
I partially agree but let’s discuss that when we get there or we’ll have discussed the entire show in this thread. 😆
@beez, the issue of abandonment and lack of a family life does have an effect on him, sure, but i do not think that this makes him “clingy”. he behaves like a normal guy who found himself in love, especially for the first time in his life. and i think that any man in his place would become a bit nervous – everything is a new experience for him in this department, but i do not see that he can not handle it, or becomes super jittery because of that.
But none of us said that he couldn’t handle it but rather that he’s awkward about it in a way that his Healer persona would normally not be.
And he’s very much clingy with Young shin. But not necessarily in a negative/ obsessive or jealous way. “It’s like he told Uncle Moon ho – I care about you but if it comes down to you or Young shin, you’re on your own [I paraphrased that part] because I cannot live without her.” You can feel that Healer is not just saying the line “I can’t live without her” the way most people in love say it but mean “I would be bereft/heartbroken”. He literally means he cannot live, continue breathing, because he would probably commit suicide because that’s where his thoughts were before she came into his life.
He can handle anything but emotional involvement. that is what maria said. so it was relating to that.
Ahhhh . I see.
@beez, @eda
I did write that. Did I use the wrong word? I probably need to clarify what I meant.
It seems that no amount of danger, no tricky situation can make Healer lose his nerve. He is a cold-headed, resourceful and detached actor. He is cool. He handles these situations.
But things look differently, when Healer is confronted with something that steers his feelings. That cool guy disappears somehow. I could’ve forgotten, but I can’t remember a scene where Healer acts as if nothing matters and efficiently controls his emotions in a personal situation.
I think Healer’s fears of abandonment and the way he chose to deal with them (“stay away from people and avoid feelings altogether”) kind of prevented him from learning how to “handle” his feelings/emotions, how to go through them properly during hard times, how not to be afraid of them.
Or maybe he just thinks that he can’t handle emotions, so he runs away from them?
I think Healer is a warm person by nature, but his previous negative life experiences made him an emotional handicap, so to speak.
unless we put him in a therapist’s chair, and assume the role of his therapist, we might not really know about his emotional world. and even that is not guaranteed.
Yes. But, as viewers, we are allowed and probably even encouraged to play characters’ psychotherapists, aren’t we?
Particularly ok when you remind yourself this is not a real person, He’s a character in a work of fiction
Of course. I wouldn’t play a psychiatrist with a real person. Too many issues of my own.
I should’ve added an “@Eda” on that comment!
meri, even a character is created, designed and inspired by real life characters and events. it might be exaggerated, enhanced with the creator’s imagination, but still the theme of the drama and a specific portrayal of a character or events is a reflection of what goes on in the society, and which issues are close to the creator’s heart and mind – to flush it out in the open. that is if the drama is good and worth anything. and so we as viewers judge it through our own perceptions, brain-filters if you wish, also relying on real life experiences. that is how i see it.
Honest truth is that I do consider fictional character to be real. At least the ones that I come to care about.
Which can be a problem in our household when their behavior frustrates me!
I was only saying it’s fair game to talk about them behind their back. lol
meri, the diplomat.
Ha. It’s actually true. My wife is an anti-fan of how agitated I get when characters that have come alive to me start doing dumb things.
I yell at the monitor or storm out the room in frustration, while she sort-of patiently waits for me to calm down.
Which, for a trope-lazy show, can be a problem for the TV-watching portion of our marriage. These tropes in particular:
Noble Idiocy (of course)
DON’T SHARE INFORMATION!!!
Plus its variant — ONLY I CAN DO THIS!!
Or my all-time non-fave for K-drama —emoting dramatically for several minutes while the person you love bleeds out in your arms, instead of calling 911 while attempting to staunch the blood flow or whatever.
Sheesh. Nobody is that lame in RL. The writers just want to max out the melo.
My wife tries to calm me down by saying, “it’s just a TV show.” But it’s not. To me, these people are real.
meri, take a deep breath and call 911 – remember to tell them the area (korea). calculate if a regular aircraft, or helicopter or a rocket or something more fantastical (that uses the speed of light) will be necessary to help your favorite character bleeding out to death. although my heart goes out to your wife.
but since we are on the topic of characters. i am currently watching legend of condor heroes the old version from 2007. just wanted to see very young hu ge, plus it seems to be a classical.
i am only on the 13th episode out of 50, but i am already totally invested in it, intellectually and emotionally. the reason i am bringing this up: it is the ancient china world and the people inhabiting it, from different layers of society – poor people, rich people, princes, warriors, heroes, marshal artists… it is a legend (although does have quite a few historical figures with their real names), it is full of fantasies. so what does it have in common with our modern world? good and evil, greed, corruption, righteousness, courage, kindness, parent’s relationships with their children, lies, manipulations, love, jealousy, power hunger… you just name it- the great plagues of our modern societies. and although this is fiction, as you say, not much changed in the human basic character, driven by ego, so we can relate to it and get involved, even that it is happening hundreds of years ago. why? because the characters are based on real LIFE and we can relate to it as we ourselves are living in this world, with such real characters, real emotions, real situations.
by the way, it started a bit slow, but picks up and becomes quite interesting and enjoyable, especially that it has so many angles of human characters. if you have the time, i would recommend it.
@eda – or if he’s in Korea he should dial 119 (or maybe 112). 😆
@merij – At least you know your wife loves you if she waits these outbursts out. She does pause it for you, right? I mean, she doesn’t keep watching without you? 😆
Yes she waits! While rolling her eyes. Which is only fair.
@eda – I agree. I think most important is relying on what the writers actual tell us, even if we perceive more to it.
I was heavily involved with Spartacus 2010 (show is not for the tame hearted) and I was a moderator on the Starz Network forum boards for the show. Arguments went on and on despite what the writers said was the characters’ motivation. I tend to feel that a character belongs to the person who created them so that even if I see something else that would be classified and analyzed differently, I just believe the writer.
In the case of Healer, the writer said nothing outright about just how real his stuttering & nervousness is, so we can only all go with what we see. (Although Ahjumma mentioning his autism is a huge indicator in my book.)
yes, characters are created by the creators of the drama/movie. but sometimes those characters acquire a life of their own, and might even have unintended influences, for good or for bad. at this point they are out of the creators hands.
I agree with Eda.
Although we always want to understand writer’s intent, characters become “public property“ at some point.
Besides, writers don’t always succeed in creating characters they intend to create. Also, we can’t discount director’s or actors’ part in bringing these characters to life.
“we can’t discount director’s or actors’ part in bringing these characters to life.” quoting Maria F
true dat
@beez and maria, yep, it’s a mix. so who’s brain should we pick, the writer, director , actor, producer…?
i think that’s going too far. what other characters should we play?
we can also write a drama on any given drama, like we sort of started doing with my mister. that’s called “entertaining ourselves”.
Hmm, Gods, maybe?
And as viewers, we are part psychotherapists, part veterinarians (they also can’t question their patients and ask them for the symptoms).😊
I’m sad that MM discussion is over. I loved it…
*about their symptoms
maria, aren’t you putting it into a novel? i am still waiting.
i mean my mister.
My novel isn’t complete. I need to find a few more explanations of why DH described JA as pretty.
he had a good eye.
Good point! And the simplest explanation is usually the right one.
@MariaF, not sure if it would be of help, but Yu Ra also described JA as pretty when they first met at Jung Hee’s in ep 15. I think her character is really intended to be pretty but unkempt, having had no role-models and resources to prettify herself.
Sorry for the out-of-topic post, just missing you guys so much! I’m just passively reading to refresh myself on Healer as it’s been 1.5 years since my watch. It’s a favorite before I stumbled upon MM. My only unresolved issue with Healer really is why didn’t Park Min Young retain her short hair after the show? She’s so much prettier in it, and it could make her stand-out from all the other typical long-haired K drama stars. I watched WWWSK after Healer and PMY just ain’t the same with long hair.
Oh before I forget, I’m also waiting for the novel. 😁
actionscript and maria (this is your chance maria to get back to your favorite MM) but Yu Ra also described JA as pretty this completely escaped my mind, so now i feel better, i am not alone. and i am sure there must have been other people that saw ja as pretty but unkempt. so thank you for bringing it up, better later than never.
I’m not sure it’s fair to talk about MM here, but ok. I’ll bite.
I remember that scene. Here are two reasons I still think it is significant that DH described JA as pretty to the bartender:
1. DH’s brothers learned about JA throwing away the vouchers and saving DH from being fired. So they started asking DH, if JA was pretty. Many times. His answer was always: “Stop it. She is a child. Stop it.”
Fast forward a few episodes, and what do you know! She is pretty now. To him. Nobody else saw her that way at the time.
2. When Yu Ra saw JA, she wasn’t that “wounded animal” anymore. Although it was just the beginning, JA was in a process of becoming a new JA. Her facial expression and her general looks were changing. So the writers wanted other people to start noticing that she was pretty.
Also, Yu Ra is a woman. Women can see better what’s underneath those unkept looks.
I miss our discussions too, so no need to apologize.
PMY looks very cute with that haircut. But I love when women have long hair, so I’m conflicted.
I miss you guys, too! Although I do see actionscript at the Soompi Forum 🙂 Nice to see we are all lovers of Healer as well. After My Mister, Healer is my 2nd favorite kdrama (but it’s tied with It’s Okay to Not be Okay).
Hope you guys are doing well…I’m going to wade through some of these other comments on these threads for Healer!
maria, Hmm, Gods, maybe?
gods – multiple, or one god?
Either would work for me, I guess. We are just playing, right?
@maria, well, i guess you are sticking around. well done.
@beez, i am not sure. i think any person in love (or many people when in love) can not imagine life without the other, at least at the moments when love is at the beginning, and the involvements are at the highest. i left my ex, but when i was in love, i could not imagine life without him. and then i left (my mother could never understand it).
I hear you. But people say that and think it, but we all go on living (the majority of people do). See the, to me, inspiring attachment. 😉
But I truly felt that Healer would not go on without Young shin but that’s just my impression from a couple of statements he made and based on his merely existing with no family, etc.
You are right about that scene.
Healer was on a take-out diet after his mentor left. The poor thing hasn’t had a normal family meal since he was a young boy.
No wonder he wasn’t quite himself.
Or maybe the opposite: he was nudged towards being “himself” after years of living in shadows.
I suspect it was more than just an awkward behavior.
I think his heart was melting.
He was deeply touched that someone had invited him to share a meal, especially since one of the dishes was prepared by Chae Young-shin herself. And she made potatoes, the same dish Healer’s mother served him before leaving.
i do agree that something touched his emotions, but being able to be in complete control, he chooses to respond with humor. that’ s how it looked to me.
With humor?
ya, funny, teasing. i perceive it as an expression of a kind of humor. i do not believe that he did not like the food, he just chose to turn it into a temporary joke.
Oh. I see. I was talking about a different scene. The one that Alexandra mentioned. After Healer got into a fight to save Chae Young-shin on their way home, he slept outside her house and then got invited by her dad to have breakfast with them.
@eda -sounds like MariaF is talking about the other scene where Healer looks overwhelmed by all the side dishes that a normal family Korean breakfast has.
@MariaF – 😭 Don’t even get me started on Healer’s mother. I have lots to say when she finally appears on screen.
This is similar to how I have been thinking about this. It might have been the breakfast episode that started with the camera moving through the warehouse, as it did in episode 1 but it immediately jumps to the microwave heating a meal and the mess of his takeout containers and him looking through the leftover food for something else to eat. Wow how sad. So I believe he is having very genuine feelings perhaps only discomfort that he is aware of, in this breakfast scene .
hei, merij, i almost started worrying about you, didn’t see you around for quite a while. good to hear from you again.
anyway, i had the same question, but it was just a question, which did not really bother me. whether it is an act or real, or may be a bit of both of those; is it important though – that’s the question. does it change anything for the drama, or the character? my opinion, it is not really significant, just that it adds cuteness and sort of softness to his otherwise bad ass character. may be that was the intent.
I have been a wee bit down, tbh. But here I am, alive and well!
glad you are alive and well. keep it up.
Welcome back!
@merij – I don’t think it’s a spoiler but kfg would be the one to say.
@merij @maria @mon mor @ eda – I do think Healer’s disguise in the cafe is exaggerated, as is his behavior at Someday newsroom (and while accompanying Young shin as a reporter). But I also believe there is some legitimate awkwardness when he has to become “real” and handle normal social interaction. So he’s unfamiliar with being someone’s boyfriend. This wasn’t necessarily awkward, but I remember face palming at his reaction to the first time Young shin cooked him a meal. Boy! Don’t you know you’re supposed to say it’s “delicious” and gobble it up like it’s the best thing ever?! 😆 but then again, that just shows how comfortable he is with Youngshin. There’s no awkwardness in being with her, but awkwardness at his role of what’s expected in being her boyfriend. His nervousness with her parents – Amazing Dad and Ahjusshi – though that was real. Not that he’s afraid physically, but these are her parents, the people who might convince her not to be with him because of his background and his occupation, his future in-laws possibly.
Yeah. Being someone’s boyfriend is definitely a new territory for Healer. When was that meal cooking scene?
I wouldn’t call Ahjusshi her parent… An uncle, maybe?
@MariaF – perhaps I should’ve used quote marks around the word “parents” instead of italics to indicate I know Ahjusshi is not, in fact, her parent. But for all intents and purposes he fulfills a surrogate mother role of making sure Young shin eats breakfast before leaving the house, etc. And even then, of course, he isn’t truly filling a missing mothers role.
You are right. Ahjusshi does take care of YS, whenever he can.
@Maria F – hmmmm. The chicken & rice curry dinner was maybe around episode [sorry, I’m really not sure].
Oh, I remember that scene!
But I didn’t get an impression that he didn’t like her food. I thought he was just joking / playing with her. Teasing. YS tricked Healer into touching his eyes earlier, when he was peeling an onion. It hurt. So this was his “payback”.
@MariaF – Yes, he was joking but the usual trope we see is a man eating his girlfriend’s food even if it tastes terrible. So my point was Healer either isn’t well versed in the things boyfriends are supposed to do, or he’s so comfortable with Young shin that he’s not afraid to tease her about the first meal she made him.
@beez and @maria, and we can establish – he has a sense of humor.
@beez, but may be it is just an “artistic” juxtaposition, to sharpen the edges of the opposites in his character (for our enjoyment). but whether it is real (as maria suggests, and i happen to agree with her), or it is half real, or sort of real, or none of the above… i still stay with my assessment that this question is not really “life shattering” for healer’s character or the drama itself. you know what i mean?
Plus @merij – That Peter from the Monkeez wig is horribly ridiculous. I don’t think show was hoping for realism but rather to give us a lightened mood at that point.
Do you remember the Monkeez? I can’t think of Peter’s last name right now.
Peter Tork. Rhymes with dork. Of course I remember The Monkees! I am roughly your age, my dear.
@merik1 – that doesn’t mean we all watched the same shows. Although, maybe we did. I tried to explain to my son once about how we used to be able to make a joking reference and every one knew exactly what you meant with no explanation because we all watched the same shows (3 channels and maybe 2 local) 😆 I miss the days of water cooler tv conversations. Now there’s too many channels to for everyone to know all the shows.
@beez. We were kids, so even fewer options for shows to watch back then. I must have been around 11 years-old.
Love American Style? Ha. So bad, but it was probably my first regular exposure to romance shows. And Laugh In?
Did you watch Saturday morning cartoons as a child? The opening sequence to Johnny Quest still thrills me, with that gigantic mechanical spider.
@merij1 – alas, I’m not a Johnny Quest fan but I did watch enough episodes to know the characters (Ben, Haji, Scientist Dad). I don’t recall the opening sequence or the mechanical spider.
I suspect you were even younger when the Monkeez aired because I remember only watching because my big sister took control of the tv. 😆
I looked it up:
The Monkees is an American situation comedy series that first aired on NBC for two seasons, from September 12, 1966, to March 25, 1968. – Wikipedia.
Although maybe you watched reruns/syndication of it? Or maybe you have great early memory recall. (So do I although it’s not as vivid as it used to be before my current memory issues.)
I was a huge Saturday morning cartoon junkie my entire life until they ruined it with the Pokemon & tarot card spirit animal battle stuff. I think Pinky and the Brain was the last great cartoon (well, Batman The Animated Series and that Terry McGinnis Batman were very good too.) Are you familiar with any of those stellar cartoons? Or should I be more modern and call them “animated shows”? 😆
@beez Yes, I would have turned 9 a few months after The Monkees began its run. I too had older siblings, which is why I was able to watch Laugh In, even though it was clearly not age-appropriate. As I recall, I only watched the first season of The Monkees and then lost interest.
And yes, Saturday morning was the bomb. You remember so much more about Jonny Quest than I do! Mostly I thought the intro sequence was cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIhEpjnaNlo
wow, that makes me feel how much i missed out on all of these! this looks pure fun for kids.
Hey! Merij – I’m so excited! You’re actually older than me! haha! (I don’t know why that makes me so happy! 😆 I thought I was the oldest around these parts other than BE and Georgia Peach.
The video clip – I do remember! (A little better description of the spider would’ve jogged my memory better.) 😆 That thing is not what would come to anyone’s mind when you say “spider”. 😂 And it wasn’t “Ben” but “Race Bannor. And the dog, “Bandit”!
@Beez – I believe I have you and merij1 by a few years, 👵 however, my 💖 is 👶
@phl1rxd – I’m very surprised by you as well!
You don’t sound— let me rephrase that – You sound young! 😘@Beez – thank you Miz B. 😘 The grand kids keep me up to date. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my 22 year old body with my now, much older and much wiser soul.
@phl1rxd:
I can’t remember where I’ve heard the phrase: if only youth knew, if only old age could.
@phl1rxd – So Say We All!
– Battle Star Gallactica
So funny. I read that and thought you were saying the love of your life was much younger. And I thought, “cool, @phl1rxd found herself a noona romance!”
Now, that’s funny!
Merij1 – 😂🤣😅😆
look what a “can of worms” you just opened! nice job.
Worms rock
hope you are “dancing” and being entertained. isn’t it what it’s all about? (don’t take me serious, at least not always)
@kfangirl – you mentioned this about Young shin – … true that this is technically stealing, but I’m willing to look past this, because, well, the shouty guy she’s stealing from is clearly not meant to be taken seriously, and also, I just like Young Shin. quoting KFG
That made me think about, ya know, Young shin is also kind of an anti-hero. After retiring from working in offices for over 35 years, one type of person that I absolutely hate with a purple passion are lunch stealers/biters and Yong shin is definitely that kind of person. And yet I still love her to pieces. ❤ (But probably because I know her back story.) Young shin doesnt have to be our typical Kdrama heroine. She’s far from perfect, she’s not even all that bright – or rather, she’s not book smart. I’m not saying she’s dumb by any means but she told us she didn’t do well in school. Despite Amazing Dad who was willing to send her to school, and despite her dreams, she fizzled 😖 out with studying/higher learning (although I think she said she graduated a minor college.)
But just as Healer can do no wrong in our eyes (as long as he doesn’t kill anyone), likewise, whatever Young shin does cannot make us not like her.
Besides she’s so warm and caring for her “cowardly” hoobae, and worries about his safety despite her own fear and post traumatic trauma. I’m babbling but, oh well… I’m just glad to be here for this rewatch. 😄
I thought that scene was hilarious.
I wonder which subjects she wasn’t good at in school. She is clearly a good writer, which helped her to become a great reporter. Maybe problems with math? But there are plenty of people, who are great with math, but have no propensity for writing/ communicating.
@Maria F – yes, I laughed at the sandwich biting scene despite myself. And the look on Healer’s face was incredulous. 😄😄😄
How great to be excited about watching a show the 4th time! I particularly noted the way show links the current day characters to the past ones by fading (I don’t think fading is quite the right word) from one to the other. Also at one point early on there is a scene relevant to Park Min Young’s character that immediately moves to the photo of mom and daughter beside the noona’s bed. All details I missed on first watches that are so well done. It was difficult for me on first watch to match up the past and present characters. The camera does not linger on the photo that much but we keep seeing it. I am now much more knowledgeable about Korean history so these scenes in the past have more context. The union stuff as well. I can also see the parallels to When My Love Blooms starring Yoo Ji Tae. He likes these kind of roles as in Different Dreams as well.
I love learning history from kdramas. Kdramas are full of exploration of the effects of history on their society. I am so excited to watch Twenty five twenty one.
I hope I did not go too far off topic. This is my first posting.
@Mon mor – I think your post is spot on, in terms of topic and focus! Being able to reflect on previous experiences with a show, and especially to compare the experience of what you understood then (in terms of K-history, actors, lens, prevailing mores) compared to what you know now, is a treat of rewatching a drama.
On that note I have been reflecting on my experience of Park Min Young. And I do prefer her younger And more casual look. I also really liked her in City Hunter. Partly it is her polished look that is making me not want to watch the new show with weather in the title.
@Mon mor – thanks for reminding me of Different Dreams. I’ve been stuck at episode 8 for the longest (since it aired). I keep going back, determined to finish it, but I just can’t seem to make it beyond this episode. Did you find it slow or hard to get through? I guess what I’m really asking is – is it worth it?
Different Dreams was definitely not one of my top watches. I don’t really remember very much about it.
Oh I made a mistake. I could not get very far in different dreams either. It was just too slow and all the Violent acts of insurrection with no context, for me at the time, was also boring.
I was thinking about When my love Blooms which was OK but not one I am interested in revisiting or that I even remember that well.
I’m watching -oh! wait! You said When Love Blooms. I was going to say I’m watching that right now. But I’m not. I’m watching Lovers in Bloom per @Mr. Sean K. Fletcher’s recommendation. I’m at episode 59 and it’s just ok. It only became halfway interesting around Episode 15. That’s a long time to wait for things to get interesting. Heck! That’s almost an entire drama for must shows! But it fills my criteria for daily (for me, morning) shows. Long enough that characters tend to repeat certain expressions and they don’t tend to rattle words off so fast that they’re just a blur and I can’t make anything out.
@KFG – funny you mention “kryptonite” in your recap (I haven’t finished reading it yet so you may yet mention this) but keep in mind that this is the classic Superman and Lois Lane story. Healer = Superman. His real identity is Clark Kent (or vice versa depending on how you look at it). Yong shin = Lois. Feisty, nosy girl reporter (back when Superman was created, female reporters were few so the title was “girl reporter”). Lois showed Supe the ropes of dealing with the workplace and she was quite cynical setting as shecs a big city girl whereas Clark is a small town hick. (Young shin has experienced the worst society has to offer a child.) Healer may fight bad guys but he’s isolated and doesn’t really know people.
Healer even has Clark’s “glasses trick” where a flick of his tinted glasses and no one recognizes his two identities. 😆
I watched Healer a few times without even recognizing this story. Someone else made the observation and I was floored when I realized that “It is Superman & Lois!
Nice!
Spot on, this is how I described it to a friend when she asked what Healer is about 😂
@Beez – great comment!
Hi everyone! Be sure to pay attention to the little things. The jumps to the past may seem boring if you’re like I was during my first watch and only care about the romance. But those backflashes to the past have an effect on our OTP’s future.
@Beez Perhaps you meant to post on the Open Thread, rather than the Spoiler Zone..? 😅
I’m making my way over there. I was thinking of duplicating my first comment there too but I haven’t finished reading your recap yet.
@Beez – another great comment.
@phlrxd – what am I going to do with you? You’re so sweet but I’m embarrassed 😊
@Beez – 😁😂🤣😅
This is the spoiler zone. I watched Healer last year on my sister’s rec, and while I liked a lot of it I found it a drag towards the end. I do remember the start being pretty amazing though. And its one of those show with such a cool theme tune I just want to listen to the whole thing every episode.